StarCraft Ulysses 2
by Gavin Mitchell
Summary: Following the events of Brood War, the final battle begins for control of the Korprulu sector, the Earth, and the galaxy... To be continued! Chapter 3 arriving later than you can bear.
1. Part 1: War of Wrath

STARCRAFT ULYSSES 2 

To Shardendra. 

'Shortly after DuGalle's defeat, the remainder of the UED Fleet was overtaken by Kerrigan's forces and eradicated. No UED vessel ever made it back to Earth to report what had transpired. 

'With his rag-tag fleet beaten and crippled, Arcturus Mengsk fled back to Korhal to lick his wounds and plan the reconstruction of the Terran Dominion…

'Artanis and the Protoss survivors returned to Shakuras to begin rebuilding their once glorious civilisation…

'Zeratul and James Raynor went their separate ways and have not been heard from since their departure.

'And alone, floating on a dark platform above the burnt-out planet of Char, Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, sat and lorded over the ravenous Swarms. Unable to shake the feeling that a great threat loomed just over the horizon, Kerrigan could only stare off into the vastness of space where she beheld a great void. Or perhaps a reflection of a hollow victory and the trials yet to come…'

__

PART 1: WAR OF WRATH

THANGORODRIM 

As the last remnants of DuGalle's expeditionary fleet were overtaken by Mutalisks and eradicated, Gryphon tightened her human-skinned bat wings flush to her torso and shot through the door of Kerrigan's command centre at more than ninety miles an hour. Snapping out her wings once again, she slowed virtually to a halt and alighted gently on the ground in a vertical standing position. Furling her wings, she dropped to one knee, lowering her eyes before her liege… the Queen of Blades. 

'The deed is done, my Queen,' she said quietly. 

Kerrigan, her torso hunched and her fist raised to her lips, looked up for the first time. 

'Then the last force in the galaxy which might have bested me has been destroyed,' whispered Kerrigan. 'And all other opposition has been broken utterly.' 

'As you required, my liege.'

'You have done well, Gryphon. You have always been my faithful servant.'

Gryphon smiled, somewhat mirthlessly. She still had not looked at the Queen – Kerrigan was of perilous mood and seemed to have acquired a peculiar horror of being stared at. But she felt harsh footsteps, as of steel-shod feet on a steel floor, approach her. 

A finger touched her gently beneath her chin. Knowing the terrific strength of which the Zerg Queen was capable, Gryphon raised her head and face. 

She stared into orange eyes that were fierce, desperate – and red ringed. 

'And what of Raynor?' 

Gryphon sighed inwardly, but took care to show none of her displeasure at having been asked this question a hundred times on her face. 

'Raynor disappeared soon after Fenix and Duke were slain. Our spies have been unable to find him.' 

Kerrigan let out a long, shuddering sigh. Gryphon saw tears well up in the orange eyes and was barely able to refrain from shuddering in disgust. 

'Duran?'

This, at least, was a relatively new question. 'Duran has also disappeared. I am not sure of the relevance of this, but I believe Zeratul has taken an interest in his whereabouts…'

Kerrigan's eyes narrowed and grew cold, and Gryphon felt a pang of regret that she did not get flashes of her old mistress like this more often. 'Then let them hunt each other down and destroy themselves. Duran abandoned me in my hour of need. He is anathema.'

Gryphon restrained a smile, but soon she was able to keep from smiling in truth as Kerrigan gave a querulous, shuddering sigh.

'And what of Mary Jane? What of our daughter?'

Gryphon kept a tight rein on her expression. 'Mary Jane has vanished absolutely… my liege.'

Kerrigan's mouth crumpled; she started some outburst, then forcibly bit it back. 'No note. No message. No word. Just to vanish while I fight my battles elsewhere. How can she do this to me?'

'And yet you have no clear opposition, my liege,' Gryphon murmured. 'You are, after all, the Queen of Blades.' Such talk seemed to comfort Kerrigan these days. 

Kerrigan's mouth compressed to a tight line. 'Yes… I have the most powerful forces remaining in the galaxy. There remain none who can threaten me…'

'And soon we will be able to execute our final victory… my liege?' pressed Gryphon. Greatly daring, she reached forward and held the Queen's hand. It was gripped back painfully. 

'Yes… my faithful vassal. Soon we will execute our plan.' 

Gryphon squeezed Kerrigan's hand briefly, then slowly and carefully stood up. The sapling watered, it was time now to depart. 'Forgive me, my Queen. I must inspect the enslaved Cerebrates and the spawning grounds.' 

'Yes, Gryphon. You must.'

Gryphon stood, and smoothed the remnants of her once-white dress over her hips. She turned on her heel and walked slowly, in human fashion, from the command centre, her wings furled upon her back. She did not walk quickly enough to miss Kerrigan's final words. 

'They have left me,' she heard a pitiful whine behind her, 'and now all is dark and empty.'

Gryphon heard the sounds of frenzied weeping behind her as she left and called it madness. 

THE WHITE COUNCIL __

Then you are certain you can do this, sent Zeratul from the Templar Archives on Shakuras. 

'Absolutely,' said Magellan quietly. 

The long-wave FTL communication devices of the Protoss picked up their short-range telepathic sendings, converted them to send with faster-than-light transmission, and for a Protoss receiver would be translated back into longitudinal waves of psion particles which another Protoss would find comprehensible. 

__

I know it is irrelevant, and it does not alter my counsel, responded Zeratul. _But how was it that you made this… breakthrough?_

For audiences who preferred to communicate without telepathy, however – which still included most humans – rather than be converted into psions they could instead be processed through a voice simulator. Thus it was that, almost uniquely, Magellan was hearing Zeratul speak with an audible, albeit digitised and flat-sounding, voice. It sounded very out of character.

'Well, as you know none of us had any immediate explanation for how it was that Raynor was able to slay Arcturus, take his head, verify his identity telepathically, and so forth, and yet Arcturus could appear alive again soon afterwards. And with the chaos surrounding the whole attack by the UED, none of us were able to discuss the matter again in lieu of more pressing issues.'

Magellan's words, on the other hand, were picked up by a microphone and converted into meaning engrams via a linguistic translator. They were then transmitted via FTL technology and translated into psionic communication at Zeratul's end. 

__

But evidently, you considered it, construct, commented Zeratul during a pause. 

'My mind does not allow me to let things like that go. It planted a seed. I recalled that I had given cloning technology to the Cabal of Ghosts in exchange for material on how to train their own people. Currently this seems like a mistake…'

__

There were many mistakes made around that time, construct, growled Zeratul, _by all of us. We need to undo the damage that has been done, not create any more…_

The accusation was obvious, but Magellan ploughed on regardless. 'I came to the blatant conclusion – at least to me – that the Cabal of Ghosts had used this technology to clone Arcturus, and the original's assassination by Raynor gave them the ideal opportunity to insert their own puppet into the role. And this led me to the belief that cloning _was_ possible. You see, one can do anything if one can only believe that it is possible. When Henry Ford wanted the V8 engine to be built, he-'

__

So you developed cloning technology, cut in Zeratul with abruptness that sadly did not come across through the digitiser. While the sorrow Magellan had encountered during his time with Raynor had done much to humanise the construct, much of his arrogance, his bizarre sense of humour and his frequently misplaced enthusiasm still remained. _I had always thought that cloning had never fully succeeded amongst your people due to insurmountable problems?_

'Problems insurmountable before cyborg technology and genetic engineering resulted in _me_,' said the construct breezily. 'The chief problems of cloning were that the clone, having been grown from a cell in an artificial womb, would be born as a baby, and it would have none of the memories or personality of the adult. Of course growth acceleration is possible once one manipulates the time dilation effects our own FTL technology compensates for, and of course memories and personality were both superfluous to the requirements of myself and the Cabal of Ghosts.'

Zeratul raised one hooked, three-fingered hand to his face and turned away from the viewscreen. To those that had known him long enough, this could be seen as the human equivalent of a sigh. _And you succeeded. _

'And I succeeded.'

__

I suspect this shall be the last chance I have to say this, responsed Zeratul, _but you know I consider this a bad decision. It is clear that it was never Raynor's destiny to have the powers of the Dark Templar. He should be left in peace. _

'The Terrans do not acknowledge destiny,' 

Zeratul shook his head, a movement Magellan noted with some amusement that he had picked up from humans. _Then you have chosen to join your fate to that people. I've said enough. I have my own race to look after._

Magellan suppressed a smile of secret superiority. 'A shame you cannot join us for our meeting,' he said. 

__

There are pressing matters here, replied Zeratul. _There is still much friction between our sundered kindreds, and conversely there are those who wish to be trained in the ways of Entropy. And as for me, this may well be the last time I have chance to say this: but I do_ NOT _approve. This is one battle you humans will be fighting on your own. _

Magellan smirked mirthlessly. 'Then farewell.'

Zeratul's image vanished from the screen. 

Smiling coldly to himself, Magellan left his quarters and headed for the conference room. 

Walking the steel corridors of Raynor's battle cruiser Hyperion, Magellan's arrogance had time to rise to towering heights. It was thanks to him, of course, that the cloaking technology previously available to the Terrans had been improved to the point where it could be detected by the resources available to no other race. It was thanks to his ceaseless pilfering of Raynor's knowledge of psion and entropy manipulation that he had been able to harness these energies to his designs. And it was thanks to this miraculous technology that those allied to Raynor – the last pocket of rebellion in the galaxy – had evaded the purges of first DuGalle, and later Kerrigan. The rest of the galaxy might live in fear, but they were still free. 

As he walked into the conference centre Raynor brought him down abruptly. 

'You're late,' the ex-Marshall snapped. 

Magellan felt blood rush to the organic parts of his face, and countered his embarrassment in the very human fashion of growing annoyed. 

'I have been busy, _sir,'_ snapped Magellan. 'Busy with very important things!'

'Busy enough to ignore the commanders of the fleet?' snapped Raynor, gesturing about him. 'We've been here half-hour!'

In fact the conference room was largely empty, and Magellan felt a pang of regret that their old allies, people like Zeratul, Fenix, Artanis were not there. Of course this brought back a reminder of _why_ they were not there, which was a thought that Magellan angrily pushed away. 

On Raynor's left was Tom Kazansky, ace pilot who had stuck with him through thick and thin – and it had mostly been damn near transparent where Raynor had been involved. Despite his abrasive and imperturbable exterior, Kazansky had been considerably shaken by his experiences in Kerrigan's zone of compulsion and her subsequent triumph over all of the Dark Templar, the UED and her own people, and thus he had been fortunate to acquire a lover, who herself had taken a major part in mellowing the pilot out. 

To Kazansky's left sat that lover, a young woman dressed in a combination of Ghost uniform and the patched black leather and denim festooned with archaic 'anarchy' symbols that were common amongst Raynor's rebels and virtually forgotten throughout the rest of the galaxy. Most striking about the woman's appearance, however, was the chalk-whiteness of her skin, and its translucency to some fairly startling blue veins beneath. In stark contrast was the jet-black colour and straw-like texture of her hair, and the unrealistic, livid black of her eyes. A pure albino lacking any skin, hair or retinal pigments, Beatrice had only narrowly escaped being allowed to die as a child, as her impressive psionic abilities meant that she qualified for Ghost training. Reaching adulthood she was able to compensate for her inborn weakness as an albino with Ghost psionics, cybernetic eyes, and a gothy monochromatic colour scheme. 

'For the record, Zeratul sends his disapproval,' spit back Magellan as he took his place on Raynor's right. 

'Let that arrogant Protoss disapprove all he wants,' snapped Raynor. 'For he knows of course what we are about. Now, with the bulk of Kerrigan's fleets out in deep space pursuing the last remnants of the UED, the time has come for the implementation of Operation: Wrathchild.' 

The other three exchanged glances. Kazansky looked resigned. Since the loss of his psychic powers and Ghost Templar status, Raynor had become increasingly tyrannical and would be gainsaid by nobody; and his old advisers, Kazansky and Magellan, were aware of their laxity in being too preoccupied to hold him back. Beatrice looked merely confused; before joining Raynor's forces recently she had been hiding out from all sides of the conflict. Magellan, however, looked triumphant. He knew that what Zeratul disapproved of was not Operation Wrathchild at all. 

'Wrathchild?' said Beatrice a trifle uneasily. 

'When we used Nanotech serum to cleanse Alexei Stukov of his infestation, it proved it could be done,' related Raynor. 'Currently Stukov is in charge of the Infestation Rehabilitation Centre on the planet of Haven in the neutral zone, where de-infested Terrans now go to be freed of the depressions and psychotic episodes brought on by being severed from the Zerg hive mind.'

'I am aware of that,' said Beatrice with a trace of irritation. 

Raynor glowered at her. 'Well then. Operation Wrathchild involves the use of this Nanotech serum. It centres on what I have long believed; with Kerrigan out of the picture, the power of the Zerg in this sector will be broken forever.' 

Beatrice's eyes grew wide. While no one dared relate these episodes in Raynor's earshot any longer, she had heard at great length in private about how Raynor had singularly failed to destroy Kerrigan on a previous occasion. She also knew that the time was that Raynor would have easily ripped these heretical thoughts from her mind, but no longer. Kazansky and Magellan however, who had been present at these events, merely looked uncomfortable. 

'With Kerrigan's forces scattered and depleted following the three-pronged attack of the Dominion, the UED and the Protoss, it will never be easier to carry out Wrathchild.'

'Kill her?' said Beatrice.

'Snatch and de-infest her.' 

Beatrice gasped. Kazansky and Magellan lowered their eyes.

'But how can we possibly get through her defences? Her spore colonies and Overlords will spot even cloaked Wraiths.'

Raynor glared at her further. 'Magellan has used the knowledge of entropy manipulation I picked up from the Dark Templar to enhance our detectors beyond any technology available to anyone else. It is one of the reasons our _Rebellion_-' he spoke even of his own people with a sneer '-has lasted this long. And you're being very forward for someone who only recently joined this management team!'

Beatrice's own eyes narrowed. 'I am the elected representative of the Ghosts amongst your fleet who, I might add, are now considerable in numbers thanks to numerous defections from the UED and Dominion. My voice has a right to be heard!' 

Raynor fixed her with a killing stare but, seeing the cybernetic eyes staring back at him uncowed and defiant, he dropped his gaze. 'Fine. Suffice it to say that we have run many computer simulations of Wrathchild and on every occasion it has succeeded.'

Beatrice flicked her gaze over to the construct. 'Is this true?'

'It is. Out of one thousand, two hundred and seventy three planned runs of Wrathchild under these conditions, it has always succeeded.'

Beatrice stared, and the construct knew she was using her powers on him. Unfortunately for him, he had human brain tissue but not the skill to be able to lie easily to a telepath. 'Using these conditions.'

'Yes,' snapped Raynor. 'The other forces have been reduced to varying stages of destruction, too. Technically our own hidden Rebellion is the most well-organised military force left, if not the biggest in terms of numbers.' 

'And so, using this model, Wrathchild has always succeeded,' said the construct with a confidence he no longer felt.

Beatrice continued to stare at Magellan. 'You're hiding something,' she finally snapped.

Kazansky put his hand on hers. 'B…' he said, 'Let it go.'

Beatrice turned to Kazansky in some anger, but feeling from him a wave of reassurance tinged with a strange sorrow, she paused, somewhat confused.

Raynor no longer cared much about such exchanges, viewing them merely with irritation. 'Well, now that _that's _dealt with.

'Convey to all forces in your areas that mobilisation for Wrathchild is to begin. Soon after the estimated ready time, we will strike. Council dismissed.'

Still looking back with a mixture of suspicion and confusion, Beatrice left the room, leading her lover, with his head bowed, behind her. 

Magellan remained.

Raynor seemed lost in thought, gazing at the table, a faint look of desperation lost behind the surface anger and intimidating glare of his eyes. He seemed to become aware of the construct.

'Are you still here?'

'I need to show you something… alone,' said Magellan heavily. 

ISILDUR'S HEIR 

Breaking off the long-distance contact, Zeratul could only slump his sloping, inhuman shoulders in a very human expression of defeat. After all his best efforts to persuade him otherwise, the Terran construct still intended to go ahead with his scheme. For all that Zeratul meant what he had said to Magellan about his people being responsible for themselves, still the Dark Templar felt that he had failed. 

The ancient Protoss, now uncomfortably wearing the mantle of leadership over the Dark Templar following the death of Raszagal, switched off his recently-constructed psionic translator and turned away. Leaving the Templar Archive that was his solitary haven, he walked out into the eternal shades of twilight of Shakuras. 

As ever, the Dark Templar homeworld appeared deserted. Zeratul's people, victims of generations of persecution, could only be seen when they wanted to be seen, and Zeratul respected this as did all his fellows. The mainstream Protoss now living as exiled refugees on Shakuras were less than comfortable with this – in addition to now being the guests of their hereditary enemies – and tended to cling closely to their own enclaves as a result. This was not necessarily what their leaders wanted to achieve but Zeratul kept telling himself – as he did with the actions of Raynor's self-styled Anarch Rebellion – it was not his problem. 

He had problems enough. 

Brooding, the Dark Templar crossed the blue metal basilica pavement outside his home and walked over onto the barren wilderness that his people almost cultivated in their determination to change as little of their surroundings as possible. Lost in his own thoughts, he wandered far from the living area and into dead ground blocked from its direct view. Walking a straight line as far as possible, Zeratul seemed almost to be following some inner compulsion to come this way. But he was aware of nothing but his own thoughts. 

Which was why he did not notice the young male Terran until he had almost walked into him. 

Shocked – and horrified at his own lack of concentration – Zeratul leapt back several metres, his hand groping automatically for the Warp Blade concealed beneath his robes. He drew it out, but managed to prevent himself from activating it. 

__

Who are you? What are you doing here? sent Zeratul in deafening psionic tones. Since at least a third of the problems he was brooding on involved Terrans, he was by no means thrilled to be confronted with one now. _This world is a haven for the Protoss alone. Our races are not at peace. You are not welcome here!_

This particular Terran would have looked odd by most standards. He was barely an adult, of small and slender build, with long hair tied back in a ponytail of a lustrous, almost luminous purple colour. Zeratul was not yet familiar enough with the varied appearance of these aliens to pick up on this; however, he did notice the identical Warp Blade hanging at the Terran's belt. The Terran, grinning, reached down to it. 

__

How did you get that? sent Zeratul in actual alarm. _Have you slain a Dark Templar and taken his weapon?_ Zeratul sent his thought processes along the channels that activated his own Warp Blade and a dark blue, twisting, rippling ribbon of entropic energy extruded itself from the cylinder. _You clearly have no idea of the destructive and dangerous properties of this device. And if you have slain one of my people, then your life is forfeit._

The Terran did not appear at all fazed by the threat. He merely spoke one word. 

'_Crackers._'

Though the Protoss could neither hear nor understand language in any human way, Zeratul's gaze went completely blank. The glowing orange eyes lost all purpose. Even behind his mask, hood and alien features, puzzlement and bemusement could be discerned. 

Then the glowing stare abruptly regained focus, and Zeratul looked at the Terran with uneasy recognition. _Hello, child,_ sent the Protoss. _Shall we continue our lessons?_

'Don't mind if we do,' grinned the Terran. 

In their natural dip in the ground the two fenced for hours, neither tiring or weakening as they drew on their inherent psionic talents and their manipulation of the entropy forces around them to sustain their efforts. Indeed, it was Zeratul who sensed himself starting to lose the mock battle first and broke it off, praising the human's skills. 

__

You fight one-handed, like a true Dark Templar warrior, sent Zeratul with open admiration, _and you do not seem to require your right arm for balance. Is there any way that you think you could use it offensively?_

In answer the young male Terran held up his right hand clenched into a fist. A dark blue, glowing shard of energy flared from it. 

Zeratul's eyes widened._ A blade of pure psionic energy,_ he observed. _I have only ever heard of such a thing being used once. It destroyed the powers of the one other Terran I have taught as I have taught you._

'I know. I have spoken with its inventor.' 

Zeratul looked pained. _It troubles me to know that you have dealings with such people,_ he sent. _I would like to know how it is that you have association with such a destructive force as the Queen of Blades… and I must admit, it would be useful for me to know how such a weapon could be created. _

The Terran grinned, again. 'Oh, you don't _really_ want to know either of those things, old guy.'

Zeratul's gaze turned blank and confused again, and he raised his free hand to the back of his head. _No… I suppose I don't…_ He trailed off. 

'Now then. Is there anything more you can teach me.'

__

I cannot. Your fighting skills have surpassed mine, your entropy manipulation is up to the standard of any Dark Templar, and anything in addition to that is simply not known to me. To learn the secrets of the Psionic Storm of the High Templar or the mental domination of the Dark Archon, I fear you must look elsewhere…

'Oh, I assure you I have no need to learn either of those.' The Terran smiled again and looked over at a clump of alien vegetation, as though considering whether to incinerate it psionically or not, but then looked back at Zeratul. 

__

Then your teaching has come to an end.

'Good. I'm glad we've had our time together here on Shakuras.

'Now hear this. There will be no need for you to remember any of our training sessions. Currently it has been useful for me to allow you to recall them from one to the next to provide necessary continuity. However, now that I have learned that which I need this is no longer the case. You will forget all of our time together… permanently.' 

__

Yes… Yes, I will. 

'I say farewell, and _crackers_.'

The Terran vanished – not an unusual sight on Shakuras, but not one often carried out by his species. Zeratul's eyes turned blank and confused once again, and did not clear until such time as he had walked slowly and carefully to the top of the high ground surrounding this dip, and sat down, meditating and surveying his homeland. As the blue lights flickered on and off in their otherwise permanent halo in the eternal dusk, the Dark Templar's gaze slowly cleared, and his mind returned to the problems that had occupied him to begin with. 

After a while, a yellow dot detached itself from the overall halo of blue, and headed towards Zeratul's place of meditation, resolving itself into a Scout air vessel as it flew. Slowing, it touched down not far from Zeratul and its pilot emerged. The Dark Templar knew who this would be, and it brought him some measure of relief. 

__

En Taro Tassadar, sent Artanis as he walked towards Zeratul's high seat. _I imagined I would find you here. Increasingly, this is where you spend time meditating alone. _

Yes. Yes, I know, the Dark Templar responded. Something was nagging at him, but he knew not what. He did indeed spend a great deal of time meditating out here far from his people, but then were not his problems so pressing that such sojourns alone were required?

__

Does something trouble you?

Zeratul could answer this with equanamity and his doubts vanished. _Many things, young Executor_. _Magellan, despite all my urging to the contrary, is persisting with his scheme._

We can do nothing to influence the actions of their rebellion, or their race as a whole, responded Artanis in as consoling a pattern as he could manage. _Perhaps it is their destiny that they will cleanse Kerrigan of her infestation and remove her threat from the galaxy. It will be all the better for it._

Zeratul spread his hands in a very human gesture of helplessness._ They meddle with technology in a way that can only lead to further horrors. They have taken the knowledge of entropy that I taught to Raynor in my folly and adapted it to their own devices. They meddle with cloning and gene manipulation in only the way the Xel'Naga did before them. And where did that lead?_

Artanis sent no thought by way of response.

__

And meanwhile, while the Anarch Rebellion sows the seeds of all our destruction, I find elsewhere that our worst fears are realised.

You found Duran?

Yes, and our suspicions are correct. On Braxis I found him with a tank which contained a Zerg / Protoss Hybrid and all the equipment required to make more. 

Artanis bowed his head, looking at the floor. _And what did you do?_

It was clear from the setup that this facility was left there to be found. The Hybrid had not been activated – had it been, I doubt I would be speaking to you now. It could have destroyed me without question. After saying his piece, Duran teleported out in the full knowledge that I would be unable to stop him. I destroyed the Hybrid and all the equipment, and obliterated all trace of its existence. But what did this achieve? Really?

At least the Terrans on Braxis have no chance of abusing the technology themselves, Artanis offered, though it was fairly clear to both of them that he was clutching at a straw.

__

They don't need to. Magellan will eventually figure it out and abuse it himself, Zeratul thought bitterly. _And if the power controlling Zeratul is what I suspect, whatever the Terrans can come up with will be the insignificant tinkerings of children by comparison. _

Artanis was quiet, again. _In the time of Tassadar, all hope seemed lost, but still they fought on, and eventually triumphed over the Zerg, _the Executor sent.

Zeratul reached his hand towards his face, turning away. At times like this he realised just how young his opposite number was. _To be replaced by the struggle against Kerrigan, and the UED. Perhaps Tassadar's sacrifice was in vain. _

Artanis was shocked into psionic silence. Zeratul felt strongly that he had offended the younger commander. He realised, belatedly, that perhaps he should not alienate one of the few allies he had left. 

__

I am sorry, he sent_. I am aware of how you revere your predecessor, and with good cause. But it seems that though, for all our sundered kindreds lived in eternal enmity, before the Terrans entered this sector, there was a peace and stability, of sorts. Why do they have to dabble in powers so dangerous for the momentary advantage they can enjoy in their brief lives? They tried to control the Zerg, and failed. I can only dread the time when they do the same with entropy, with gene manipulation, and bring down even worse horrors on us. _

Artanis could not argue with the content. He could only send:

__

Why are you so preoccupied with the Terrans?

I don't know, responded the Dark Templar with something very close to despair. 

THE DOOM OF DORIATH 

'What did you want to speak to me about?' said Raynor heavily as he left the conference centre.

Magellan hung back to allow him through the door. 'It would be best if I were to show you. Could you accompany me to my quarters?'

Raynor had already turned left, heading to his own, but wheeled on his heel, glowering imperiously at the construct. 'I stopped going to your quarters some time ago, Magellan. Having to stop artificial intelligences from escaping into the corridor and trying to keep from treading them underfoot gets wearing after a while. And what is it you want to show me anyway? Some miscegenated monkey with several extra brains? I have better things to do!'

Magellan counted to ten in every language he knew, a technique he had resolved to adopt next time Raynor went into his often-interrupted but never-ending whiny tirade. It took 0.86 seconds and thusly did little to improve the mood of his human side. 

'I think you will want to see this,' said the construct, an edge of anger creeping into his voice. 

Raynor's grim, angry, preoccupied façade wavered at something in Magellan's words, as did the desperate look behind it. For the first time in a long time the construct saw in his commander a flare of interest in something beyond himself. 

It did not go out.

'Show me,' said Raynor curtly. 

Magellan's quarters were significantly tidier and more organised than Raynor remembered. Whatever artificial intelligences or genetically manipulated creatures were currently under experimentation by the construct, they had been turned off or quietened. It was still dark, though. The cyborg tended to rely on his enhanced senses when not around mere humans. 

Raynor halted in the doorway while Magellan walked on ahead. Ever alert to his surroundings, and still in the mindset of not wanting his time wasted by the construct, his eyes moved slowly in their sockets, examining the room. Nothing appeared new… till his eyes widened when they beheld a large, semi-vertical pod, bathed under the solitary harsh striplight in the room. It was this Magellan was walking towards. 

Raynor followed slowly, eyes growing wider and wider, hit with an increasingly feeling of unreality. The pod was roughly oval, seven feet high and three wide, constructed of blackened steel. It was fronted with transluscent glass in jagged, mismatching panels; beneath the glass, nothing could be seen. 

'It's this you want me to see,' breathed Raynor. He watched his breath form mist. The cyborg was not mindful of temperature either, but the most intense cold seemed to be radiating from the pod. He had considered touching it, but realised it would probably take the skin off his fingers. 

'Not this. Its contents.'

Raynor drew in a breath and held it. 

The construct stepped to the side and pressed buttons on a control panel. With a hiss as air rushed into the pressure differential within, then a sharp drop in temperature as the chilled air seethed out, the front cover of the pod began to rise slowly on a hinge at the top. Raynor stepped to the side as it moved through the space where he had been standing, then, driven by an anticipation now all-consuming, he leaned in to look, careful to avoid contact with the freezing metal. 

For one moment the sight shocked him into a paralysed horror. It was a vision he had only ever seen the like of before in mirrors. Frozen within the pod, was his own body, naked, white and dead. 

Raynor exhaled sharply, sucked in a breath of freezing air that burned his lungs, then gasped it out again. 'You cloned me!'

'Yes,' said Magellan heavily. This was always the part he had feared; Raynor's reaction. By now, it could be anything up to and including ordering both the clone and himself jettisoned into space. It was unlikely that anyone would carry out the order, but Raynor's moods were now doing nothing for morale. The unspoken reason for this drastic course of action. 

Raynor did not seem inclined to threaten or bluster this time. His eyes were rapt with fascination. They never left the clone. 

'Why did you do this? Do you think the Anarchs need a new leader?' The old bitterness was creeping in at the last. 

'No. Can't you guess? What would a clone have that you no longer have?'

Raynor's eyes turned to Magellan for the first time, and the construct saw hope light in them with the fearsome intensity of a man who gave up all hope some time ago. 'A pineal gland!' 

'A pineal gland. One I can implant into you.'

Raynor's grim, set face began to crease into a grin; not a kind of grin that Magellan particularly liked the look of, but a grin nonetheless. 'Magellan, we all know it, but I have been remiss in not stating this recently. You are a _genius_. How soon can this be done?'

'Now, if that is what you wish.'

'I wish it. As long as someone can be found to take command while I am gone.'

'Kazansky has already agreed to this,' said Magellan, not saying that Raynor not commanding for a while would be far better for the fleet than him commanding at the moment. 

Raynor's eyes widened with shock. 'Kazansky knows about this?'

'He knows. So do Zeratul and Artanis. Why do you think the Protoss no longer have any involvement in our plans?' said Magellan with some bitterness. 'It's not the idea of snatching Kerrigan they disapprove of. It's this.'

'It will be worth it,' Raynor breathed. 

Predictable, Magellan thought. The obsessive response of the fanatic. 

'And for your information, Operation Wrathchild was only considered to be successful under the conditions of this operation working.'

'I'm sure it will. What will it involve?'

'Not much,' Magellan said, half-sarcastically, half-lying. 'I put you under full anaesthetic for as long as it takes to cut open your skull and your brain and cut the duff pineal gland out. I have already taken the liberty of removing the clone's.' With his metal arm, he reached over to the clone, eyes closed and supine in the pod, and raised his head. Raynor saw an ugly wound running vertically from the back of the clone's neck to the furthest rear extension of his skull. With his human arm, Magellan took a jar from behind the pod and held it up _very_ carefully. A small organ floated in an off-white fluid. 'This goes in your head. It goes without saying that if anything goes wrong, you will be left with permanent brain damage… if you survive at all.'

Raynor locked eyes with the construct. 'To have the powers of the Ghosts and the Dark Templar and to lose them again?' Raynor shook his head slowly. 'As I am, Magellan, it's not worth living at all. This is a risk I'm _very_ prepared to take.'

Madman, Magellan thought. But instead he said:

'I can start the operation at once. I imagined that was what you might have wanted to do.'

'You got that right. You won't have to hold me down and strap me into any chairs this time.'

It occurred to the construct that he preferred Raynor back then. But again, the thought remained unspoken. Magellan sighed, once. 

'My operating table is this way.'

'Bring it on,' Raynor said, already striding away, not giving his clone a second glance. 

DENETHOR 

As DuGalle's last message to his wife and the people of Earth played out on his laptop, Bob Callahan, president of the United Earth Directorate, turned increasingly pale. It made no difference that the message had been addressed to Helena. Privacy and human rights abuses were matters that had long since ceased to have any meaning in a world dreading Zerg infestation or Protoss cleansing. 

When DuGalle's pistol put a bullet through his brain the president flinched as though shot himself. Subsequently he reached a shaking hand to his desk and pulled open a drawer; it rattled. He stared into it. It was filled with a plethora of pill boxes. He fumbled through them spastically, trying to remember what they all were and did. The amphetamines kept him going through all the stress. The tranquillisers took the edge off his worries. The fact that they might add to his paranoid fear of the alien wars in the Korprulu sector, or the fact that the detachment they gave him might add to his ruthlessness with regards to his own people, were matters he did not concern himself with, or allow anyone else to. 

He took two of what he thought were each, slammed the drawer shut and buzzed for his secretary. The blonde, slender woman walked into his office. Lenina Orwell was very cold, very efficient, and very unavailable. 

'You heard the news?' quavered the President, dry-swallowing the pills. 'Lenina, get me some water.'

'Yes, sir, to both,' she answered dispassionately, striding over to the cooler in the corner. Callahan's eyes were compelled to follow her legs beneath her pencil skirt. 'I also have a feed from DuGalle's private comlink, of course. And here it is, in a straight glass, sir.'

'The best of our wealth and manpower was sent into that Korprulu sector. Lost… all lost. The Zerg and the Protoss and the Dominion will be on us like flies around shit,' groaned Callahan. 

'Perhaps,' said Orwell, face empty of all expression but a cold indifference. 'But why don't you abandon the small talk and cut right to what you really called me in here for?'

Callahan stared back at her with a mixture of resentment, guilt and admiration. 'Shit, Lenina, you know that as well as I do.'

'So will it be the Italian brunette ex-lesbian, the Chinese tantric sex practitioner or the Swedish Uppsalan temple dancer?'

'Considering the planet might be overrun by Zerg creep anytime soon?'

'Yes, sir.'

'_All _of them.'

THE TREASON OF ISENGARD 

Arcturus Mengsk was a man who did not know himself. 

Sometimes he found himself speaking, giving impassioned speeches to the live and virtual audience of his subjects, gesticulating with his fist in a studied, precise manner drawn from video footage. Sometimes he found himself speaking with groups of people; generals of his armies, political subordinates. Sometimes he tortured, and sometimes he killed, enemies, prisoners and threats to his reign. 

Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he made love to women. Some he performed acts of studied depravity on, acts drawn from the minds of surviving prostitutes and political prisoners. Some he hurt so badly that they did not survive his orgasms; these were hurt in ways drawn from the memories of those who had had to dispose of his victims in the old days of the Dominion. 

Arcturus did not want to do any of these things. Many of them filled him with horror and guilt, memories which did not make the pleasures of drink or drugs or sex he also experienced enjoyable for themselves. Sometimes he broke down and sobbed in despair, curled up on the floor with his head between his knees. 

He was not often allowed to do that last; it rarely suited the purposes of his controllers. Because Arcturus was not a man who was allowed to set his own agenda, or operate according to his own motivations. He was a clone created with one intention; to be a figurehead for the Cabal of Ghosts, who since Raynor had slain the original Arcturus, had been the true rulers of the Dominion. 

Working on shifts so that at least one Ghost was in mental linkage with Arcturus at all times, the clone puppet was ready for all eventualities. Having never had the opportunity to grow up he had never evolved any willpower or personality; that which he had was baby-like, spending all its time crying on the few occasions it took command. And they were indeed few. There were at least six Ghosts in every twenty-four hours to take control of Arcturus. 

'And how are we this fine morning?' inquired Willard as he breezed into the Black Ops chamber, not far from Arcturus's throne room, where the two Ghosts designated for this shift were seated in za-zen meditation. 

'None the better for your asking,' grated the one. 

'Arcturus has been forced to flee back to Korhal with his tail between his legs,' growled the other. 'Me and this guy have to come up with some suitably face-saving speech and deliver it to the rabble before long. Kerrigan's going to turn her attention in our direction not long after that. So how _else_ are we supposed to be this fine morning other than in a world of shit?'

'No! We'll be fine!' breezed Willard expansively. 'Kerrigan's not going to bother us for a while and maybe the Dark Templar will deal with her for us. So relax! Lighten up! Don't worry about it!' 

The Ghost who had spoken first muttered something. 

Willard frowned down on him. Whatever he had said, Willard might have chosen to make an issue of it, he might not. Despite being possibly the shortest Ghost in the Cabal, Willard had become Master due to the level of sheer ruthlessness he could summon. People who expressed any contrary opinions at all, and who Willard considered a threat, tended to wind up dead in extremely painful, messy, and spectacular ways; and in a secret society made up of elite, psionically-gifted assassins, this was no small achievement. Willard was now unquestioned as leader, and he was also responsible for incorporating the Ghosts into what was supposedly Mengsk's Dominion as the secret police, a role the majority of them much appreciated. Those who appreciated neither Willard nor the role had defected to Raynor's Anarch Rebellion, if they could achieve this, or eventually been eliminated by Willard, if they couldn't. 

There was a quiet knock at the door; this had been noticeably absent when Willard entered. 'Come,' snapped out Willard in far icier tones than he had used earlier. 

A young female Ghost entered. She looked terrified. 

'Sir, I think you need to see this.'

Willard frowned at the Ghost who had muttered, then followed the new arrival. 

These days military information reached the Ghosts first, and they decided whether to allow it to filter through to the other forces of the Terran Dominion, or the deluded Arcturus nominally their commander-in-chief. With a shaking hand, the Ghost indicated a sensor display to Willard. 

'A fleet… coming from uncharted space,' he muttered. 'A _huge _fleet. Bigger than anything we or Artanis or even Kerrigan has left. With an exit vector orthogonal to anywhere the Zerg or the Protoss have attacked from.'

'Yes, sir,' quavered the Ghost. 'And their design isn't Zerg or Protoss or UED. It's like nothing we've ever seen!'

'Those big ships look like they could contain around four Carriers…' Willard muttered. He might have examined them further, but a crashingly loud psionic voice erupted in his head:

__

HUMAN! YOU OBSERVE US? WHAT ARE YOU DOING SO FAR FROM EARTH?

Willard's mind reeled. 

__

I have never been to Earth. Who are you?

YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN TO EARTH? BUT YOU ARE HUMAN. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

My ancestors were exiled from Earth… along with everyone else in this Dominion. 

OH, REALLY? Willard heard the ghostly equivalent of a laugh, which struck him as most odd. From what limited experience he had had of telepathising with Protoss and Zerg, he knew that shared concepts could be communicated telepathically, but no-one pure Zerg or Protoss could ever physically laugh at anything. The concept of humour was one that could sometimes be translated. But laughing, along with coughing, required lungs…?

__

HUMAN, I THINK WE CAN TURN THIS SITUATION TO OUR MUTUAL ADVANTAGE…

Willard's face lit up immediately. 

__

That would do me just fine, he returned. 

THE SLAYING OF CARCHAROTH 

As Raynor opened his eyes a crack, a blinding shaft of light brought instant agony with it. 

'Sir?' said Magellan uneasily. 'Take it slow. You haven't looked at light for a long time.'

'How long?' croaked Raynor. It was clear he hadn't drunk for a while either, but he ignored Magellan's advice, and opened his eyes a crack. He found that the pain diminished rapidly, surprisingly rapidly it seemed. He opened them fully. Surrounding him was the familiar black steel and claustrophobic darkness of Magellan's quarters. Visibility was actually quite adequate for once; either his eyes had become abnormally sensitive through lack of exposure, or there was some other reason. 

'Seventy-seven hours,' said Magellan quietly. 'An amazingly short period of time to recover from major brain surgery.'

'I'll have to take your word for it,' Raynor whispered. He was conscious of a dull throb in the back of his head. Less pain than he'd expected. He sat up, ignoring Magellan's gasp of horror and clucks of disapproval, and felt the back of his head. Beneath his fingers was ugly, poorly healed, Keloid scarring extending at least six inches up and down the back of his head. It stung to the touch; Raynor winced. 

'Are you able to do skin grafts?' said Raynor uneasily. He had had very little hair to start with, and doubted he was going to be capable of growing enough to cover this monstrosity in the near future, if ever. And he estimated 'ever' to be the more realistic time period on this occasion. 

Magellan sighed. 'I _am_ but it will take quite a bit of time.'

Raynor grimaced. 'Time we don't have. All right, let's consider it when things are quieter.' Raynor thought of his Dark Templar hooded green robes that were stashed back in his quarters, and considered ruefully the likelihood of wearing these with the hood up until such time as Magellan could manage the requesting cosmetic surgery. In the chaotic events that were to follow, Magellan was not going to manage the skin grafts for a long, long time, and Raynor's hood was rarely to leave his head thereafter. 

Raynor felt the rough edges of the wound gingerly. 'Have you invented a rapid wound healer too? Surely this has healed quickly…'

'No sir. I have not invented any kind of wound healer. And the usage of UED technology is contraindicated for central nervous system damage.'

'Then why has this wound healed so rapidly?'

'Why do _you _think?'

Raynor considered. He stared deep into the construct's one human eye. He willed himself to look into Magellan's mind. 

There it was. Half of it was missing, replaced with circuitry over which telepathy had no jurisdiction. The other half was frantically trying to screen him out by repeating insanely complicated formula to itself. Raynor fleetingly considered trying to break through this barrier, delve deeper, before realising what this meant…

'_I got my powers back_,' he hissed, lips curling upwards in bitter triumph. 

Magellan grimaced. 'Yes. Your wound was healing even as I watched, while you were unconscious. You muttered in your sleep. You summoned entropy to you, crashing half the machines – including the ones keeping you alive. You cloaked and de-cloaked at random. You had your powers back the moment the pineal gland went in.'

'Then we've achieved what we wanted to achieve.' Raynor swung himself off the operating table, ignoring the weakness and spasmodic twitching in his limbs, and his burning desire for a sip of water, and the fact that his hospital gown opened all the way up the back. 'I have to get to my quarters, see if I can activate a Warp Blade once again. I don't doubt it. After that, Wrathchild goes ahead as soon as possible. If not sooner.'

Raynor began to limp to the exit. 

No thanks, no acknowledgement, Magellan thought. Had he really expected any? No. 'Do you have any orders for me specifically?' he called wearily. 

Raynor halted, his eyes abstracting and attention going within, Magellan fancying that an orange taint began to flood into the whites and irises. 'Yes. In fact I do.

'That clone of me. See if you can bring him to life.'

Magellan goggled. 'I _can_, sir, but what would be the use? He will have no experience, no personality.'

Raynor smiled, tight lipped. 

'I think I have a good idea what sort of personality will be useful for him…'

ANGBAND 

Tarsonis was a world of abandonment; a world which had both been abandoned itself many times, and a world which had seen many beings abandoned on it in their turn. Firstly Arcturus had summoned the Zerg here to destroy the people of the Confederacy, innocent or not, then had forsaken Kerrigan on the planet's surface. Subsequently the Zerg and the Protoss had seen no advantage in this blasted world. The Cabal of Ghosts and subsequently, Raynor's Anarch Rebellion (though they had not been called that then) had both been forced here having nowhere else to go. The Cabal had betrayed Raynor here, and the former had abandoned this planet for re-acceptance into the Dominion and the latter for an uncomfortable welcome on Shakuras – subsequently to be taken in, en masse, by Kerrigan's zone of compulsion. Finally even the Terran Dominion had abandoned it; the UED had taken no interest in such useless territory. 

Zeratul could feel the despair and desperation of all these lost souls of all races, who had fallen to their own brethren or to the alien others, on his nightmare journey through the ruined cities and military installations of this forgotten world. He was bleeding from what felt like a thousand wounds; blue cobalt-based liquid dripped from his robes, trickled from his hooved triple-jointed legs. As he stalked his prey to its bolthole he had faced horrific mutations, fusions of Zerglings and Zealots, hideous creatures equally at home on two legs or on four, with psionic blades of light-blue energy, speed beyond any Protoss metabolism, ferocity beyond any Protoss mind. The pain in his body did not match the agony in his soul at the sight of these abominations. But at last he was close to his goal. 

Crouched beneath the giant form of a shattered Protoss Cruiser was a rusted, seemingly abandoned Terran physics lab, the door blown off its hinges. Zeratul stumbled into the entranceway, having to lean heavily on the frame in a futile attempt to ease his fatigue. Dimly he could see his prey inside. If it had not heard his heavy staggers, surely it must be able to sense him psionically by now. But it made no reaction. The seeming male Terran figure, clad in a long cream coat, merely stared up at the sole sources of illumination in the room, computer banks showing ever-evolving hybrids of Zerg and Protoss. 

__

This ends here, thought Zeratul. Lurching forward, he raised his Warp Blade and slashed directly through the back of the Terran with all of his remaining strength. 

Nothing happened. 

'Ah, Zeratul,' said Samir Duran, turning round and smiling slightly as the aging Protoss staggered, caught himself, struggled not to display weakness before this adversary. 'You have found me, then.' 

His torso should have been sliced completely in two. But not even his coat was damaged. 

__

You could not have survived that, thought Zeratul wearily. By this point, it was not even a question.

'No,' said Samir Duran with equanamity. 'I could not.' He began to pace back and forth before the exhausted Dark Templar, staring at him through narrowed eyes all the while. 'But was that really what you hoped to achieve? You thought a clumsy Warp Blade strike could take down a power of my magnitude?'

__

I no longer dared to hope for it, sent Zeratul wearily. _All I wanted now was information. And proof._

'Information? And proof? So. You have come all this way, and nearly killed yourself. You realise now it is entirely up to me whether I let you off this planet alive. But what have you gained from it? All you have learned is that I am capable of creating Zerg-Protoss Hybrids, which you discovered some time ago… and that I am a Xel'Naga, a fact that should have been obvious from the first!' 

Zeratul, despite himself, gave the mental Protoss equivalent of a sob. _So you admit that you are a Xel'Naga?_

'I do. It suits our purposes to reveal this now. Because the time is long since gone when anyone below the third level of intellect could stop us. At this point, revealing our identity will make the suffering of the Zerg and the Protoss as we have our revenge all the more sweet.'

__

Revenge? It was the Zerg who destroyed you!

'After the Protoss had abandoned us!' Duran spat, showing an inhuman level of fury on features that Zeratul could not see were also inhumanly mobile. 'You left us to be destroyed by our own creations!' 

__

Your creations… You brought this upon yourselves!

'Do you _wish _to die, Zeratul?' shrieked Duran in fury, stalking towards the Protoss with hands hooked into claws. The Protoss was calm and imperturbable. Duran halted, his eyes narrowed, his face taking on the sullen, bitter, vengeful expression of one who no longer defines themselves as anything but victim and who sees no future but endless retaliation. 'No… that would be too soon. We want you to live in fear, in anticipation of the revenge of the Xel'Naga. Go back to your people now, and tell them that they are all destined to die – perhaps quickly, if they grovel for mercy. It may not be some tomorrow, it may not be soon… but it _will _happen, at a time of our choosing, and not yours!' 

__

The Protoss have lived the good lives of warriors, stated Zeratul calmly. _We fear not death. We have lived beyond it and that is our strength. _

For a instant Duran seemed set to explode in fury, but his face collapsed into a sneer, instead. 'You believe what you want to believe. Now I think I will let you kill this form of flesh, give you at least some shred of satisfaction out of another futile mission. You can destroy this installation too, if you wish. It makes no difference! We shall meet again at your death. Adieu.'

Entirely against his volition, and against his conscious urging, Zeratul's arm raised and slashed his Warp Blade through Duran for a second time. This time, what should happen, happened. Duran exploded in a shower of gore, red and black blood with standard human and mutated Zerg entrails.

Zeratul regained control of his arm. He lowered it to his side, shut off his Warp Blade and bowed his head, staring at the floor as the blood mingled, red, blue and black. 

THE CHAINING OF MELKOR 

Wings beating frantically, Gryphon soared over the battlefield that the dark side of Char had become, twisting in painful patterns and describing alterations in velocity which would have broken the back of any lesser mutant as she tried without success to discern some part of the conflict that was going to her advantage. 

__

The field is lost! she sent finally, desperately to Kerrigan, who was co-ordinating efforts from her stronghold on the light side of the planet. _Everything is lost!_

__

How can this be? came back the response. _Raynor's Anarch Rebellion is numbered only in the hundreds!_

Every one of their vessels is cloaked! Gryphon sent back, tightening her wings to her through a hail of flak. Beneath her, Spore Colonies and Ultralisks were being torn apart by laser fire from Wraiths they could not even see. Overlords clustered, struggling to the conflict; their detection abilities somehow valueless, their last desperate tactic was to flock to the source of the shooting, try to smother the Wraith with their own bodies and bring it down that way. It was a strategy that had worked on precisely one Wraith so far; crashing to the floor of the desert, its strange cloaking device had failed, leaving it as a twisted black heap of wreckage, festooned with white Anarchy symbols. Three exploded Overlords had been taken with it. _They have some new form of invisibility that our psionic detectors cannot penetrate._

There was a brief telepathic silence from Kerrigan. _They have adapted the entropic invisibility of the Dark Templar, perhaps, _she sent back slowly_, and combined it with their own to form a new technology. Can we not teach our detectors to see past this, as they did with the Dark Templar?_

Too late, was Gryphon's sole response. 

__

But they cannot slay our Cerebrates? Kerrigan sent back, desperation now clear in her own thoughts. _Only the energies wielded by the Dark Templar themselves have served to destroy them before. Ancalagon the Black can send endless waves of Tarrasques, brought alive by his psychic power. The UED might have had sufficient resources to bring down a Tarrasque, but not Raynor!_

The Black One has fallen, thought Gryphon with grim fatalism. _Somehow they have built entropic energies into the Yamato cannons of their Battlecruisers. Ancalagon was slain by a blast from a ship he never even saw. _

Kerrigan was telepathically silent for even longer. Then:

__

Place yourself en rapport with the commander of their fleet, if you can, she set wearily to Gryphon. _We shall try to close him down mentally. I will aid you. _

Tried and failed, sent back Gryphon. _The commander of their fleet has no psi to attack. _

There was an even longer pause this time. And Kerrigan did not even ask for an explanation. 

__

Then this battle is truly lost, she sent. _At least, I die knowing that I took the UED, the Protoss, and the Dominion with me. _

The Queen of Blades fell silent forever. These were her last words to her faithful servant. 

Gryphon sucked in air, hyperventilating with horror. Her wings ceased to beat, and she plummeted towards the carnage below. Shots peppered the air around her, missing chiefly due to the speed of her descent. She was insensible. Racing through her mind were thoughts of her dark mistress, the woman who had brought her over to the power and passion and control offered by the life of the Zerg, the woman who had come so close to ruling the galaxy but for the betrayals by her former lover and her own daughter, the woman who had all but handed over mastery of the Swarm to herself. Compared to this, plummeting to her death seemed a minor distraction. 

But at that moment, at the most extreme level of emotion, the creature who had once been Belinda Lister, a young human woman with an ordinary life, had the words _diversionary tactic _flash up in her head apropos of absolutely nothing. Snapping her wings to her in a blast of air, she arrowed out of her fatal plunge and shot for the light side of the planet at a right-angle tangent. 

Outside Kerrigan's infested command centre, a heavily customised Wraith decloaked as it landed. 

Raynor's plan had worked. Kerrigan's forces were all but tied up on the dark side of the planet, and he knew that Kerrigan was more likely to rely on her own martial and psionic abilities to defend herself than on any bodyguards. The area around Kerrigan's stronghold was deserted. Those few Sunken Colonies that might have defended the location had been blasted out of existence with Kazansky's souped-up laser cannons. 

All was quiet. 

A gangway swung down slowly from the entrails of the Wraith, and four figures started walking down it even before its extremity touched the ground. 

'Stay sharp,' Raynor grated in the lead, now cloaked and hooded with his Dark Templar robe over his black combat gear, igniting his Warp Blade with a low roar. His plasma shield shimmered into existence around him. 

'A shame I have not yet managed to miniaturise cloaking units down to the point where they can be carried by personnel,' Magellan lamented, close behind Raynor. 'We have had to decloak Kazansky's Wraith to exit it, and all of us are now quite visible.'

'At least I've got the remote,' Kazansky commented, pulling a device from his pocket and gesturing at his Wraith. It faded from view. 

'It would be terrible if anything happened to Sherilene, wouldn't it?' Beatrice muttered. The joke sounded flat in her own ears, and no one else laughed. 

The four grouped into a diamond formation: Raynor in the lead clutching his Warp Blade in his right hand; Magellan on the diamond's left with a myriad of blades projecting from his metallic arm; Kazansky on the right, wielding a pistol; and Beatrice bringing up the rear, walking backwards and attempting to provide cover behind them with a canister rifle. Their precautions seemed futile even to them. The place _felt _deserted, as though it had been given up on. The throne room had been located on a flat surface of the desert planet, where it was possible to see for miles. Nothing was moving to break any horizon. 

The four fell back into single file to enter the command centre. The place was dark inside, and while all of them had been in Command Centres before, none of them had known them to _echo_ previously. The place was thick with Zerg creep, but somehow it seemed dead, even though Zerg tissue could regenerate from practically nothing. This creep seemed to have lost the will. 

'How is Pseudo-Raynor doing?'

Magellan tilted his head slightly to the side, and his human eye abstracted, as though he was listening to something far away. 'He's doing excellently. His forces are going through the Zerg like butter with a hot knife. The aliens do not know which way to turn.'

'This is too easy,' muttered Kazansky. 

'Pessimistic as ever,' Raynor sneered over his shoulder. 'We're going to have to work on your positive mental outlook when we get back to Hyperion, Tom…'

The glare that Kazansky sent at Raynor's broad back betrayed anger and contempt. Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. 

'Pseudo-Raynor's immunity to telepathy makes him ideal for this mission,' Raynor commented as they advanced through the stronghold. His voice echoed strangely through the steel corridors. It was starting to become clear that the acoustics of the place were so weird because all the doors had been removed, and many of the rooms and fixtures widened. Presumably Kerrigan no longer felt extremes of heat and cold as a human would. Perhaps the expanded corridors conferred some tactical advantage? Certainly human ergonomics would mean little to a Hydralisk.

'You do realise that Kerrigan can probably HEAR YOU!' hissed Beatrice, afraid and overstrained, her voice rising to a shriek by the end. 

Raynor barked out a laugh. 'By this point it makes no difference! She has lost this battle. And against us… me with my powers back… she has no chance.'

Beatrice was about to make a comment about how Raynor's towering arrogance would prove his undoing when an unearthly inhuman shriek echoed down the corridors. Beatrice spun round, fatally, to face Raynor, who himself turned round to face her, lip curling in derision. 

'What was that?' snapped the female Ghost.

It was Beatrice's fate to find out the hard way why the dimensions of the building had been enlarged. 

Gryphon smashed into her lower back from behind at a hundred miles an hour. Her fists were locked rigid straight out in front of her, and the claws springing from the backs of her hands pierced through Beatrice's lower abdomen and ripped out the other side. With an audible crack, Beatrice's lower spine shattered. The female Ghost screamed out in absolute agony and mercifully passed out. 

Gryphon had gauged her attack perfectly. All of her headlong kinetic energy had been expended on Beatrice, bringing her to a dead halt. She snapped out her wings to either side for balance, drew up her feet beneath her and yanked her claws from the female Ghost's midriff. As Beatrice collapsed in front of her, Gryphon slashed out with both claws at the woefully underprepared Magellan. His cybernetic arm sheared off at the shoulder in a shower of sparks and lubricants; some kind of electrical feedback leapt up from the construct's shoulder, momentarily scrambling his brains. Continuing the turn, Gryphon executed a spinning kick, the heel of her back foot slamming into the side of Kazansky's head. The pilot went down. 

Raynor faced her over Beatrice's body, Warp Blade drawn, plasma shield shimmering, eyes narrowed. 

'Care to take a shot at me?' he said quietly. 

Gryphon let out her unearthly raptor call, at a level that could damage human eardrums, and went for Raynor in a frenzy of claws that was almost too quick to follow. Raynor merely appeared to move slightly. 

Gryphon shrieked again, this time with an overtone of shock. In disbelief, she stared at the back of her left hand. The bone claws had been sheared off just shy of her knuckles. 

She went for Raynor again. Again, all the human seemed to do was shift balance, but again a set of three ossified knives fell to the floor from the back of Gryphon's right hand. In pure disbelief, Gryphon stared at her lost weapons. 

Raynor grinned, mirthlessly, and drew himself up, bringing his Warp Blade into a position where the hilt was held two-handed near the side of his head, the blade pointing horizontally straight at the mutant. 

'How would you like me to go for your wings?' said the human quietly, smiling unpleasantly, a crazy light in his eyes. 

The infested mutant stared back in sullen hatred. This woman had once tried to sleep with him, Raynor remembered. Staring back at him now was something that no longer much seemed to resemble a human. 

As she looked back at him, though, she saw his eyes tainted orange, his plasma shield still at full strength, his Warp Blade crackling and alive with entropy. Gryphon's eyes flicked involuntarily over Raynor's shoulder. He noticed the movement. Before the birdlike mutant had arrived, he had been heading for a closed door – the only one he had seen so far in the complex. 

Gryphon thought of her revered mistress, thought of her lost weaponry, and thought of what that Warp Blade could do to her wings. 

'Another time,' she whispered, and leapt into the air, snapping her body out horizontally. She turned over in mid air from the supine to the prone position, and with a snap of displaced air, shot out of the room as rapidly as she had arrived. 

Raynor turned on his heel immediately and headed for the chamber with the closed door. With one sweep of his Warp Blade, he blasted the portal from its hinges. 

Kerrigan was inside, sprawled collapsed on her black metal throne. She lacked the strength to sit, could only loll.

'You have found me, then,' she whispered through lips faded to grey. Black blood was pooled around her, clotting on the steel fittings, the creep. 'But I won't be taken alive. I won't be like Arcturus, queen of my own eight by eight cell for the rest of my life, or put on trial for my crimes against the free peoples of the Korprulu sector.' The blood flowed from a multitude of pierce wounds in her forearms. The blackened, dripping fangs that had inflicting these were retracting back into her jawbones as she spoke. 'Today I die; defeated, but with honour.' The head lolled forward onto the chest, the orange eyes closed forever. H

Raynor depowered his Warp Blade immediately, his plasma shield flickered and died around him. 'No!' he whispered. He strode towards his former lover through a carpet of her own blood, lifted her head by the chin. She was out of it. 'You can't die!'

'It is possible that she will survive even now,' said Magellan wearily from the doorway. His cybernetic stump still weeping oil, he walked over to the Queen of Blades and examined her professionally. 'I saw this woman burned alive, remember.'

'Do you have the Nanotech Serum?' pressed Raynor, the light of an all-consuming obsession in his eyes. 

Magellan shook his head. 'She will certainly not live through the process if I give it to her now. She must be allowed to remain infested for a while longer. No human could survive this level of blood loss.'

'Then we must get her to Haven as soon as possible,' Raynor whispered, gently patting Kerrigan's cheek, trying to get a reaction. There was none. 'Have Pseudo-Raynor call off his attack and summon his forces to meet with us at the terminator of the planet. We will convey Kerrigan there with Kazansky's Wraith…'

'Is she all you think about!' shrieked Kazansky from the doorway. His left hand was clutched to the livid bruise already forming on his face. His right hand still held his pistol. 'Beatrice's back is broken, and for what? So you can snatch Kerrigan from the death she wants and which she so richly deserves?'

Raynor turned round, faced him calmly. 'We achieved what we came here to achieve,' he said neutrally, coolly. 'The power of the Zerg in this sector is broken without its leader.' An unease started to cloud Raynor's mind as he realised the flaw in his own argument. 'I don't know, though. That Gryphon…'

Kazansky was evidently not interested in this. Eyes blazing with rage, he stormed across the room and raced his pistol so it pointed at Raynor's face not six inches away. 'You lying bastard! This was never about breaking the power of the Zerg at all! This was about you getting your lover back! _My _lover has lost her spine thanks to you! On the light side of the planet many others have lost their lives! I should pull this trigger right now, you selfish piece of shit!'

All expression drained from Raynor's face, save a cold dead look in his eyes as he stared at Kazansky. 'Do you have any idea how far out of your depth you are?' he said quietly. The orange flared in his eyes; his hand made the merest twitch to the Warp Blade hanging at his belt. 

Kazansky held his gaze for a few seconds… though by this point, it would be difficult for any mere human to remain unintimidated by Raynor. Cursing viciously, he slammed his pistol back into his holster and stalked from the chamber. 

Raynor shook his head, sighing. He walked slowly over to Kerrigan and gathered up her body from the chair. It felt like dead weight. 

'Your orders have been relayed to the fleet, sir,' said Magellan in resigned tones. 'Pseudo-Raynor has pulled back from his attack. We will be met at the terminator, as requested.'

'His fleet can fly escort while we convey Kerrigan to Haven,' Raynor murmured. He could not take his eyes off Sarah's face. Her arms had collapsed across it, smearing her cheeks with black blood. 'They can defend us against any reprisals by the Zerg forces… or attempts to snatch Kerrigan back.'

I think the only one who wants her is you, thought Magellan. But he said nothing. Raynor headed for the exit. Kerrigan's arm trailed behind her, dripping black blood onto the floor in a row of drops. Shaking his head, Magellan followed.


	2. Part 2: Houses of Healing

__

PART 2: HOUSES OF HEALING

THE REVIVAL OF EOWYN 

The planet of Haven was maintained in a zone of neutrality by an uneasy co-operation between Raynor's Anarch Rebellion and Arcturus's Terran Dominion. In exchange for entropically-cloaked and -powered defence emplacements – of which the Dominion had no idea of the location, or how they worked – Arcturus had agreed to supply the majority of the resources and staffing of this, the only installation of its kind. There was only one purpose which could bring these two sworn enemy factions of the human race within the Korprulu sector together, and force them into cooperation; the detoxification and rehabilitation of Infested Terrans, the most feared and hated of all Zerg monstrosities. Intended by the Zerg to be destructive and self-destructive killing machines, turned and twisted against their own race, the intention of those who worked here was to reintegrate them into the pale of humanity and return them to their comrades and loved ones. 

But those who worked here had found out the hard way that some scars could _never_ be healed. 

Sarah awoke and lurched to a sitting position with a gasp, with no idea where she was. She found herself in a long, white hospital dormitory, a row of beds lining either wall. Filtered fluorescent lighting showed the scene. She was alone; the beds to either side of her, and against the opposite wall, were all crisply made, and unoccupied. 

She awoke also to pain; sharp and intrusive, and dull and throbbing. The sharp pain came from tubes which led into her; a drip feed leading blood into her arm, oxygen tubes extending into her nostrils, a catheter. The dull pain, though, extended over the whole of her arms. Uneasily, she pushed herself back against the pillows and headboard until she could sit straight, and pushed up the sleeves of her hospital gown. She grimaced; festooning her inner arms were a myriad of puncture wounds, ugly and half-healed. She winced as vague memories came back to her. Somehow, she had inflicted these herself. 

'I am afraid that Zerg blood did not remain in you long enough to enable those wounds to be regenerated,' said a deep, accented voice to her left. Sarah turned her head, wincing at the drag of the oxygen tubes in her nostrils. Walking down the ward towards her was a tall, dark-complexioned man in a high-collared, close-fitting white uniform. He halted at the foot of her bed. 

'Unfortunately you had already lost too much blood when you were brought in, and of course there was no Zerg blood readily available. Since you were also too weak to survive the Nanotech serum at that time, Magellan took a gamble and did a 100% transfusion of humanoid Type O Negative into your veins. You became strong enough to survive a Nanotech treatment, but your regeneration abilities were forever lost.'

Sarah nodded, weakly. Now she was more awake, her scalp felt oddly cold. She raised her right hand, the one without the drip feed, tentatively to her head. The skin felt mottled, and bald. 

The man shifted uneasily. 'Your spines fell out, unfortunately, and your scalp seems to have lost the means to grow hair once again. But however,' he shook himself, uncomfortably. 'I am Alexei Stukov, Director of this facility. As the first recipient of the Nanotech technology, I was also the first to experience the horror of being severed from the might of the Zerg. I am thus, best qualified to help new inmates deal with the pain of coming to terms with their old selves.

A sigh escaped his lips. 'A hard road awaits you, Sarah. It is bad enough for all Terrans, but I fear that yours will be the toughest path of all. For the level of power and majesty which you were given as the Queen of Blades is so far unprecedented within all of humanity.'

'And my crimes,' Kerrigan croaked. 'How can I show my face amongst humans now? In fact, why did you spare me at all? Surely I should have been killed for what I have done!'

'Here in the Centre, we believe that all are equally deserving of help, and a chance to become human beings once again. There are few here who did not commit some crime in their time amongst the Zerg, and perhaps you will find people more forgiving than you imagine. Everyone is deserving of another chance.'

__

Another chance, Sarah thought. The words sounded hollow in her mind. 

Whether or not Stukov was using his Ghost abilities at that point – and as yet Sarah had no idea whether any Ghost abilities, including her own, survived the de-infestation process – her thought was clear to him somehow. 'But here the odds are stacked in favour of your recovery. Here, we have assembled the finest doctors and therapists in the Dominion, and Magellan's most advanced technology, for the purposes of helping once-infested Terrans to heal and recover.'

'I was not just another "infested Terran",' Sarah whispered. 'I was the Queen of Blades. The scourge of humanity. How the hell am I supposed to "heal and recover"?'

Stukov spread his arms, looking helpless. 'Unless you will allow yourself that second chance, we cannot help you.' He sighed. 'I will have to leave you to meditate quietly alone. Soon, I believe, hope will arise within you again. In the meantime, Magellan wished to see you to check on your healing process. I say farewell.'

Stukov turned his back and paced away, leaving Sarah to hug her knees up to her chest and rock back and forth, large blue eyes (their colour restored) staring unseeing at the walls, slow tears running down her cheeks. 

In a smaller room not far away, festooned with specialised medical equipment, Beatrice was lying face down on a hospital bed, her gown opened all the way up the back. A pair of briefs was all that covered her, but Magellan the cyborg showed no interest in her body. Neither did Kazansky, her lover; his eyes showed only concern, and pain. Magellan had opened up a flap in her back which, it seemed, was made of synthetic skin, and was poking about in a metal- and plastic-lined cavity at the small of her back with a variety of middling clean tools. Beatrice's face was drawn tight with agony. 

'The damage to your spine necessitated a surgical procedure designed to allow you to accept modular, artificial, disposal vertebrae,' Magellan pronounced, still fiddling away. 

'English, please?' hissed Beatrice through clenched teeth. The circuitry in her lower back sparked at Magellan's ministrations. 

Magellan took a cylinder filled with fluid from a box and lowered it so that it was before Beatrice's eyes. 'This is what your new spine implants look like. They're disposable, you can slot in a new one every so often.'

'Great,' Beatrice muttered. Kazansky squeezed her hand reassuringly. 

'The first one should be ready to install,' Magellan said. He raised the cylinder over her head and slotted it into her back. He pulled down a lever, forcing the cylinder into place with a hydraulic hiss of fluids. Beatrice's eyes opened wide with surprise. 'It's stopped hurting.' The delicate muscles in the back of her thighs twitched. 'I can feel my legs!'

The cyborg closed the flap of artificial skin; it was clearly visible in the surrounding flesh. 'You should be able to sit up now,' said Magellan, beaming. 

Wondering, Beatrice swung herself into a sitting position, drawing the hospital gown around herself. She thrust her slender legs out in front of her, flexing first one foot, then the other. 'I have the use of my legs back! Thank you, Magellan!'

'Congratulations on being the first recipient of my artificial vertebrae,' grinned the construct. 'A small idea but mine own. It worked brilliantly if I do say so myself.'

Contrary to what might have been expected, Beatrice's face became twisted and bitter. 'Now all that's left to see is who to blame for losing my spine in the first place,' she hissed. 'Do I blame Gryphon for fighting me fair and square in the heat of battle, or Raynor for endangering all of free humanity on his fool's selfish errand?' 

It was fairly obvious what she intended. Kazansky winced. 'He's behind me, isn't he?' sneered Beatrice. 

'No, he isn't,' said Kazansky. 

'I think a lot of our faction are dissatisfied with Raynor for his actions during Operation Wrathchild,' said Magellan. 'But it cannot be denied that Kerrigan was snatched and de-infested and the power of the Zerg was broken.'

'Yeah, like that's believeable,' sneered Beatrice. 'Gryphon is as likely not to take over as I am to dance the tango without one of these cylinders. And what is Kerrigan meant to achieve for the Rebellion? It will be a brave anarch who shows her any loyalty.'

'That is as may be,' said the construct primly. 'But if you will excuse me, I must go and see my latest patient.' The cyborg left the lovers to sort themselves out. 

'Maybe Kerrigan deserves another chance, same as the rest of the other infested Terrans,' Kazansky said uneasily, picking up the box of his girlfriend's spinal cylinders.

'That may be so,' said Beatrice grimly, starting to get dressed once again in her black leather and denim festooned with white anarchy symbols, 'but I for one'd be reluctant to extend her the hand of friendship, and I think a lot of others will feel the same.'

When Sarah heard feet of steel come clanging down the ward towards her she swiftly wiped her eyes and stretched out her legs, sitting up against her pillows and trying to look alert. Her face fell somewhat as she beheld the cyborg Magellan, never a favourite figure of hers to begin with. 

'Ah, I see you are awake,' the construct burbled. 'My latest success story. Tell me, how are you feeling?'

'Fucking shit,' growled Sarah.

'Language,' said the cyborg primly. 'Well, a certain degree of irritation is to be expected in the recently de-infested.'

'Irritation,' hissed Sarah. 'You've snatched all my power from me, left me helpless at the mercy of my enemies, and you expect me to be irritated?'

'The people in this centre are hardly your enemies,' admonished the cyborg. 

'If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything.'

'I'm sure you'll feel better after some group therapy.'

'Right, like weaving wicker baskets is going to make me recover from having been the Queen of Blades.'

'You'd be surprised. Anyway, I'm sure I know something that will make you feel a lot better. James Raynor expressed an interest in seeing you after you were fully recovered. That'll be nice, won't it?'

'Raynor,' murmured Sarah. Her already pale and bloodless face had drained of all colour. 

THE BLACK GATE OPENS __

Lolling on Kerrigan's steel throne, Gryphon closed her eyes and sent out her telepathic probe, linking minds with the three Cerebrates who remained alive amongst the Zerg. All scattered to the furthest corners of the burnt-out planet of Char, yet her powers made it as though they were speaking to her from mere inches away. Not that Cerebrates could speak.

Tell me… she urged. 

I am Glaurung, came back a thought. Mine is the talent to create mutated Devourers with power to match any Carrier or Battlecruiser.

Very good, thought Gryphon. And…?

I am Gothmog, came back another. I have the ability to create Lurkers with the power not only to bury themselves, but to spew forth ravaging flames. 

Most impressive, responded Gryphon. And the last…?

I am Smaug, came back finally in tones simultaneously wily, cunning, and whiny. I have nothing to offer but the benefit of my knowledge of strategy…

Marvellous, thought Gryphon, unable to keep _the_ sourness from her voice. She thought to herself of how Raynor's forces had gone through the Zerg like a Yamato cannon through a sheet of paper, and fought to keep her dissatisfaction out of her psychic voice. Besides, the earthborne Directorate had already been decimated. That lonely planet had exhausted all of its resources in a panicked attempt to subjugate the Zerg, and now it had nothing to fall back upon. 

__

All of your forces are mobilised and ready to move? thought Gryphon. 

The Cerebrates murmured assent. 

__

Then prepare the Warp, thought Gryphon without preamble. _We light out for Earth as though the forces of Hell were on our tail. _

Thinking of Raynor, she concluded this might not be such a bad description. 

ORTHANC 

'Hot enough for you?' said Ruby Red conversationally. Willard drew his already-soaked forearm across his streaming forehead, but did not answer. 

The two strode through the darkened, black steel corridors of a Last-Stager Mothership, the biggest and most powerful of the vessels that had came out of the furthest-flung reaches of the Western Spiral Arm, headed for Earth and finding the Korprulu sector quite by accident en route. Willard was burning up. It seemed that no Last-stager felt comfortable with temperatures less than 45 degrees Celcius, and Willard was already down to his underpants. He could not quite bring himself to do as his hosts did, and go entirely naked; the abnormally large bulge at his groin was attracting enough attention already. 

Of many questions Willard had thought to ask his tour guide, the imposing Ruby Red, one he could not bring himself to say was; why now? It was clear that the Last-stagers had had no notion of the strife that had racked the Korprulu sector or the Terran race, and had no idea what state they would find their hereditary enemies in. The Last-stagers had known nothing of the doings of the true humans since their semi-legendary exile from Earth 40,000 years ago for their incestuous lifestyles and combative philosophies. Willard frowned. Another question he couldn't bring himself to ask. The ancestors of the Last-stagers had been supposed to have been banished across the trackless light-years of the Western Spiral Arm tens of thousands of years before space travel had even been invented. It made no sense, let alone why, after all these tens of thousands of years, they should be attacking now. 

Willard guarded his thoughts carefully, though. He felt Ruby Red's probe frequently, and while he had proven quite adept at screening her out, he sensed that the Last-stager had powers greater than any Ghost. He had no doubt that a normal human's mental defences would go down like a paper house in a hurricane. 

His host was an imposing figure. Nearer seven foot than six, she was clad only in a variety of knife- and weapon-belts, pieces of armour and technological accoutrements. She was thinner than any human; Willard had already felt the low gravity aboard the vessel, and realised that this led to the Last-stagers' height and build. Ruby Red had taken great pride in showing him exoskeletons that would support and keep warm the Last-stagers in the more punishing gravity and climate of Earth. Conversely, Willard realised that he felt unusually powerful, despite the heat. He was having to work hard to keep his steps within the boundaries of the corridors. 

His host got her name from the huge mass of straw-like, red hair which sprouted vertically from her skull before curving backward in a huge mane down her back. She was entirely white, and her irises held no colour. Sharp features and a sneering expression completed the mix. Most Last-stagers looked the same, Willard had seen, if slightly shorter. Also, most were pure albino (even those that did not had little colouring) and white hair was far more common than the rare recessive-gene red and blonde. So unusual were these colours that they most often supplied names for their owners. These genetic traits were apparently due to institutionalised incest and inbreeding, though this was another detail about the Last-stagers which Willard did not quite believe; along with claims that each of them was festering with mutated venereal diseases which would rapidly kill any human which had intercourse with them. This last fact seemed particularly pointed at Willard, whose weaknesses were well known amongst his subordinates, and here seemed particularly unable to keep his eyes to himself. 

A lone Last-stager female with purple hair, who had eyed Willard speculatively, had been missed by him quite early on, before he would have realised her significance. 

'Thus endeth the lesson,' crowed Ruby Red, pausing on the bridge of this, her flagship vessel. 'You have now toured fully a Last-Stager Mothership. Each is capable of holding eight Drones, itself capable of holding ten Pods. Each piloted by a warrior of the Last-stagers, each capable of flying, and fighting, faster and harder than any technology you have described of the Protoss, the Terran, and the Zerg.'

Willard nodded. One thing he did not know was the exact numbers of both Last-stagers themselves and their mechanical fighting units. Since the initial contact Ruby Red had strongly disapproved of any further scanning of their fleet, and they seemed able to sense this somehow; Willard could only comply. He couldn't decide that this meant they wanted to keep their numbers secret out of a large or small population. 

'On the ground, each of our warriors takes pride in fighting with dual blades, and is unto themselves a whirlwind of doom. Each warrior also has typically around ten personal servant robots, constructed by themselves; Combat Droids armed with short-range but powerful Blast Torches being the most common design for these purposes, followed by Spider Babies for long-range battle utilising plasma cannons. There are others, rarer but more powerful, masterminded by weapon design co-operatives such as Battery and Damage Inc…'

Willard phased out at that point, because an insistent psychic voice was ringing in his head. It was the young female Ghost manning the sensor arrays. 

__

Sir! he received. _Our sensors indicate a large mobilisation of the remaining Zerg on Char._

What are they doing? responded Willard. 

Ruby Red had paused immediately, sensing what was going on. 'What occurs? With whom are you conversing?' she snapped. 

__

The Zerg are all warping towards… Earth, thought the young female Ghost with tones between relief and unease. 

Willard related this information to the Last-stager commander as briefly as he could. Her gaze went far away. 

'So,' she hissed. 'It seems that these aliens may well be doing our job for us.'

'What do you mean?' said Willard with increasing trepidation. 

'I _mean_, my new vassal, that we can delay our planned invasion,' said Red, lolling back on her command chair and spinning it carelessly. Various other Last-stagers performing duties on the bridge made a studied show of not listening. 'We will let the Zerg get to Earth, allow them to ravage across the planet for a while, or be repulsed, as chance will have it. Either way, we will allow them some little time, then go in, defeat the victor and subjugate _both_ races. And we can count on the support of your Dominion exiles, of course!'

Willard shuddered. Even to him, this seemed an ill deed, but he fought to keep the notion out of his mind. And after all, what had the Earthers done for him? Exiled his ancestors to this living Hell of a sector, abandoned them to their fate as prey of the Zerg and Protoss, then came in to start another war when it suited them. Perhaps the tender mercies of the Zerg and the Last-stagers were just what they deserved. 

'Yes,' cried Ruby Red, her voice rising to encompass the entire bridge, 'at last we will reveal ourselves to the Earthers. At last we will have our revenge.'

FARAMIR 

Eventually, Sarah grew uneasy and afraid in the echoing, empty ward, and asked Stukov and Magellan – both seperately – to be moved. Both – seperately – ummed and ahhed, before muttering that they had to discuss it with someone and slinking away. Eventually Sarah was moved into a small, private room, flanked with medical equipment which went unused for the duration of her tenure. She could only surmise that neither of the directors of the facility wanted her in a ward with other people. It did nothing for her morale or self esteem. 

Ultimately Sarah took to shuffling round the wards, one hand wheeling the rack which carried her oxygen bottle, blood drip and catheter rack, the other hand holding her hospital gown closed at the back. Her body reacted as though it was the first exercise her human muscles had ever had, leaving her weak as a kitten, but she told herself it was necessary exercise. She saw and learned little. Whenever another human approached she lowered her eyes guiltily, unable to face someone of whom she might have slain brothers, sisters, lovers, friends; or even infested. A few people might have murmured greetings to her, she thought, but unwilling to face the pity of the race she had oppressed she put her head down and shuffled past. 

Except one time when she was gently taken by the arm that was pushing her drip rack. 

She leaned upwards, ready to respond bitterly to the human contact, but found her jaw dropping open with shock, instead. 

'Mary Jane!' 

'It's me, mother,' smiled the young woman.

Sarah gasped with pleasure, thinking of moving her arms forward to hug the girl, but realised she was still holding the rack and the gown. Mary Jane looked just as she did when she had disappeared from Char. Small and slender, she had long purple hair drawn back in a ponytail directly from her face, wearing a black vest held up by thin shoulder straps and jeans. 

'I'm so glad I've found you! Where have you been?'

'Hush, mother. We can't talk here.' Mary Jane looked about, and Sarah realised that all around her the bustle of people were passing as though neither of them were there. Sarah had had no doubt that her daughter was able to cloak, but was somewhat unnerved to realise that the field had been extended to herself as well. 

Sarah did not resist as she was bustled into a utility cupboard, but started talking almost immediately the door was closed and the room plunged into semi-darkness. 'So what have you been doing all this time? Why did you leave me on Char? How could you just go off and abandon me like that?' Sarah's voice degenerated into a pitiful whine, and water started gathering in her eyes. 

'Forgive me Mother, for all my sins,' said Mary Jane quietly, staring deeply into the eyes of her mother. 'I'm a child of the air, I'm a witch of the wind. Events move in the universe. Malignant forces return to play the eternal game. 

'I have needed to walk many dark roads in order to give the scattered children of the galaxy any chance of survival at all. To escape those who threaten all that we hold dear, I have been required to choose invisibility, to move on in another body in another time. There is still hope, but darkness must fall beforehand. And I must keep going, with no surrender.'

Sarah's face crumpled, confused. 'But what does this even _mean_?' she whimpered. 'Why can't you stay with me? You're the only thing that makes my life worth living!' 

'Believe me, mother, I would ask for nothing else,' said the young woman earnestly. 'But I must fight on, in secret, in the camps of the enemy, where they know not who I am. Only this way can there be hope. 

'Remember this… even when there seems to be no hope, when the galaxy lies down in agony and all your actions seem cursed, that there is still a light burning even in the heart of darkness. A light wielded by me. And remember, that your daughter loves you. And now, I say farewell. I must leave before Raynor does.'

Sarah took very little of this in. 'Please don't leave me again!' was all she could think of to say.

Mary Jane shook her head with a tired smile. 'I have to go. Wish me luck on my dark journey…' She slipped round the door, and was gone. 

Sarah bowed her head, tears spilling from her eyes without hope of pause. Later, when she had composed herself, she ventured out again into the corridor. People could now notice her once again, and she dodged her head out of the way of any eye contact. In hindsight the whole experience seemed very surreal. Had it all happened? Perhaps it was her daughter's ghost… perhaps she had died, and with that all was lost. 

After that all Sarah could do was cower in her room and weep for many days. 

One morning she awoke to find a pair of glowing orange eyes staring into her own. She lurched back in the bedclothes with a terrified shriek and started groping for an escape. 

'Relax!' growled Raynor. 'What's wrong with you? It's me, Jimmy.' 

Jimmy. A queasy feeling of recognition assailed Sarah. There was some warmth associated with the memories of a sarcastic marine commander whom she had known and flirted with in her human days, but the recollection rapidly deepened into darkness. The strongest images were of battling this man, with blazing orange eyes and a Dark Templar robe and weapon, with the fury of life and death. She remembered the agony as his Warp Blade stripped her of her wings. The hot joy as her psi-lance had burnt out his pineal gland. 

The figure before her did not resemble the sarcastic marine commander from so long ago. He looked barely human. 

'Jimmy,' Sarah whispered. There was unease in the voice that its recipient did not seem to hear. 

'I knew you'd remember me!' whispered Raynor urgently. He reached forward and hunted beneath the bedclothes, clasping her hands within his own. Sarah was not at all sure she wanted her hands grasped, but she was far too weak to exercise any choice in the matter. 'Listen. I'm sorry I haven't had chance to see you before, but I have to see you now. The Zerg are mobilising towards Earth, and we have to follow them. But before I leave, there's something I want you to see.'

'Where is it?' whispered Sarah. She felt barely strong enough to move her eyes. 

'Just a few corridors away…'

Sarah groaned, inwardly. Had she more confidence she might have refused this, but as matters stood she felt low enough to comply with anything anyone told her. She struggled from the bed, fighting to protect her modesty, and shuffled over to her tubing rack. Raynor swept imperiously from the room, clearly expecting her to follow. 

Raynor led her down many more than just a few corridors, into what was clearly a little-used, utility area of the facility. It was an uncomfortable journey for Sarah, made all the worse by the fact that Raynor scarcely acknowledged her and instead barked orders into his radio the entire time, mobilising his troops for immediate exit. Eventually Raynor led her to a room which might have been a broom cupboard, ushered her inside, and followed, turning his radio off and closing the door behind him. 

Sarah found herself in darkness; she swayed on her feet, finding it an effort just to keep upright. With a flourish, Raynor switched on the lights. 'Behold!' he said. 

Displayed in the middle of the room was a shop dummy. It was wearing a lustrous, velvet red dress. With long sleeves and a full, floor-length skirt, it also exhibited a plunging neckline and back that was hardly there. 

Sarah could not have expected anything more bizarre. Her jaw dropped. 

'What is this supposed to be?' she said in a tiny voice. 

'Your wedding dress,' said Raynor. 

This was the only revelation that could have topped the first. 

The breath went out of Sarah. She staggered, and nearly fell, black patches appearing before her eyes as Raynor, seeming to hunch and scuttle, rushed over to the dress, lifting the sleeves and turning it to show each side to its best advantage. 

'It's beautiful, isn't it? You will look all the more gorgeous on our wedding day.'

'_What?_' said Sarah. All capacity for shock had now faded from her. 

'Our wedding day.'

'I can't believe it…' she murmured. Tears began to gather in her eyes. 'You can't want to marry me… I'm disgusting.' 

Raynor paused, confused. 'No… no, you're not. Why did you think I rescued you?'

Rescued… Sarah's maudlin mood was replaced by anger. 'I don't believe you!' she spat. 'You half kill me, then tell me you're going to marry me? I can't do this! Leave me alone!' 

Sarah rushed from the room as fast as she was able, tears spilling from her eyes. 

She retreated to her bedroom and barricaded the door, pulling the bedclothes over her head and cowering within. She remained thus until the thoughts she could pick up from outside indicated that Raynor and all his forces had left the planet, headed in hot pursuit of the Zerg, now under Gryphon's command. Sarah had found that her telepathic powers had survived the de-infestation unscathed, but what she heard brought her little comfort. Gryphon was clearly now setting herself up to be the new Queen of Blades, and who had been responsible for her creation? Not Gryphon herself, certainly. 

Some time later, Sarah awoke to find another figure sitting beside her bed. Opening her eyes sleepily, she was confronted with none of the terror she had felt on seeing the Ghost Templar. Before her now was a young man with a shock of dark hair and brown eyes, wearing the uniform of a Terran Dominion Marine Captain, looking at her with pity and compassion. At his left elbow on an occasional table, a vase of flowers had appeared. 

'Hey,' said the figure gently. 

'What are you doing here?' croaked Sarah. She struggled to raise herself to a sitting position, unwilling to be seen to be at a disadvantage. The young man adjusted the pillows behind her, though without thanks or acknowledgement. 

'I'm Duncan. You seemed isolated… I came to check that you're okay.'

'None the better for your asking,' rasped Sarah bitterly. She reached for water to wet her parched lips; Duncan leaned over to help, but she gestured him away irritably and saw to the task herself with shaking hands. 

The captain did not appear put off by the harsh words or gestures. 'De-infestation is tough,' he said gently. 'I know.'

'What _do _you know of it?' croaked Sarah. 

The captain spread his hands, looking helpless. 'Simply this. I was captured on Korhal and turned against a Physics Lab close to Arcturus's headquarters. An invisible Ghost administered me the Nanotech serum. I came back to myself on the battlefield. I've spent the rest of the time here.'

'So what are you doing, specifically, in my room?' 

'Like I say, you seem isolated. I've seen you walk around… You don't seem to have any friends.'

'What a surprise,' hissed Sarah bitterly. 'Once, I was the Queen of the Galaxy, Ms. Call the Shots. Now I can't connect the dots. In the meantime I became the greatest mass murderer in the field of human endeavour. Is it any wonder I have no friends?'

'You don't exactly make it easy for people to approach you. You keep your head down, never acknowledge anyone…'

'And why are you here? Sympathy for the woman so many called the devil? Some misbegotten altruism within your hardened soldier's heart?'

'You seemed so withdrawn… so bitter. No one should have to be like that. I thought someone needed to show you that the world wasn't as hard and cold as you imagine. We _all_ make mistakes… especially those of us who were infested.' A shadow passed over the young man's face. 

Sarah glared at him. 'Yeah, well, in my time I didn't consider it a mistake. In my hour of triumph I stood supreme in all the universe. I would still be there, except for that bastard Raynor. Right now… my life might as well be over.' She lay down again in the bed, hunched into herself and faced away from the marine captain. 'I think you'd better leave now.'

Duncan sighed. 'Try to alienate me if you must. But, I will be here for you if you need me.' He got up and went to the door. 'Goodbye, Sarah.'

She heard the door close behind him as he left. 

Dagor Bragollach 

Bob Callahan, president of Earth, sat at his desk and gibbered as he watched messages of horror scroll over the green computer screen he had read Admiral DuGalle's suicide note upon less than a month before. 

ENCIRCLING AIR FORCES SMASHED BY DEVOURERS LED BY GLAURUNG

EUROPE OVERRUN BY LURKERS UNDER COMMAND OF GOTHMOG

PACIFIC RIM TAKEN BY SMAUG

GRYPHON AND PERSONAL COMMAND OF HUNTER KILLERS AND GUARDIANS HEADED NORTH FROM SUBJUGATED SOUTH AMERICA

Bob whimpered, gnawing his fingernails. _I have to do something! I have to concentrate!_ he told himself. But what could he do? His forces had already been decimated before this invasion, and the new invaders had, predictably, gone through them like a knife through butter. What was the point of concentrating?

The urge to fiddle while Rome burned won out. 

He pressed his intercom. 'Lenina, can you come in here please?' he said shakily. 

Lenina entered noiselessly through her internal door, as prim, cool and elegant as ever. 'What would you like, sir?' she said, raising one feathery blonde eyebrow. 

'Send me my women. All of them.'

'Sir, I am afraid to say that your women have already fled,' replied Lenina in neutral tones. 'The prospect of remaining her while the Oval Office was overrun with Zerg evidently did not appeal.'

'But they have to be here! I need relief!' Bob moaned. 'Lenina, I don't suppose you could…'

'Now you know that I don't stoop to that kind of thing, sir,' preened the young woman with arch disdain. 

'Lenina, we're probably going to be infested in ten minutes.'

'Well… maybe just this once.'

Lenina got down on her hands and knees and crawled beneath Bob's desk. He closed his eyes. 'Oh yeah, that's it baby…' he breathed. 

The doors to the Oval Office flew open and smashed against the walls to their sides with a shattering boom. Through the opening strode Gryphon, wings furled on her back, newly regenerated claws extended, burned by laser fire and cut and pierced by projectiles, but still triumphant. Elite Hunter-Killer Hydralisks slithered through the door after her, one after the other. She spied Callahan behind his desk.

'President of Earth!' she sang out. 'I am here to accept your unconditional surrender. I'm your new commander, you now are my prisoner. Hand over all trappings of power at once… uh… what's going on?'

Callahan's face had shown little awareness of any of this and just then adopted the expression of a Japanese gentleman sipping vinegar. A moment later Lenina emerged from beneath the desk, stricken with horror at the surrounding Hydralisks and the mutated Zerg leader. A volume of white liquid squirted from between her lips. 

'What have you fucking been doing?' said Gryphon in disbelief.

'Uh…' said Callahan.

'Forget it. I don't even want to know.' A freshly-infested troupe of Marine slaves had now trouped into the room, holding weapons they now appeared to have little idea how to use. 'Take these two to the infestation chambers. I've seen enough.'

THE WHITE HAND 

Raynor slouched on the command chair of the battle cruiser Hyperion, cloaked and hooded in his full Dark Templar regalia. Arranged closely behind him were Kazansky, Magellan and Beatrice, almost too close for comfort. Raynor was starting to suspect they were ready to pounce if he made any mistake or showed any sign of weakness whatsoever, and relieve him of command. _Over my dead body,_ he silently promised himself. 

'Report,' he snapped. 

'All Earth forces have now ceased hostilities,' said an ensign tersely, gazing into a remote viewplate. 'They seem to have surrendered. Gryphon's personal command now hold Washington DC.'

'Crap,' muttered Raynor.

'We came here too late,' snapped Beatrice. The accusatory tone was obvious; Raynor scowled. The clear implication was that they had delayed too long on Haven while Raynor was preparing his surprise for Kerrigan. Since Raynor had not commented on the results to anyone, it could only be assumed that it had gone badly. Very, very badly, given his endemic foul mood. This only made those closest to him watch him all the more – and undo any foolish orders after he had gone. 

'It means nothing. Gryphon's forces still outnumbered us,' snarled Raynor. 

'That may be so, sir,' said Magellan deferentially, 'but our weapons were far in excess of theirs in potency, particularly the entropic cloaking and Yamato Cannons.'

'We can attack later,' grated the Ghost Templar.

'Too late,' growled Kazansky. 'Now that the Zerg have taken Earth, they will be able to fortify it with considerable rapidity, regenerate their troops, and convert a great many Infested Terrans. Under conditions like those, to take their planet we will require outnumbering forces of three to one against.'

Raynor frowned, and might have said something, but just then the ensign called out:

'Sir! An unknown fleet approaching from the Korprulu sector!' 

'On screen!' Raynor barked. His rebellious entourage went quiet. 

Before them appeared spaceships of strange design. Huge, ungainly rectangular vessels, bigger even than Carriers; spider-shaped lengthy vessels with what seemed to be command centres in front and numerous claw-like structures extending from either side; and tiny ships almost too small and fast to be seen, a multitude of them. Raynor went cold as he realised that they outnumbered Gryphon's and Earth's forces even when they had been at full strength – and far outnumbered his. And what was that with them…

… Terran Battlecruisers. Painted black. From design they looked to be the half-assed, outmoded attempts from Arcturus Mengsk's shipyards. But all insignia had been painted out. 

'What the hell is this?' gasped Beatrice. 

'What you are looking at, m'dear, is yet another force that's decided to enter an already overcrowded arena,' Raynor growled. 'And some dissident faction within the Terran Dominion has decided to ally with them. I wager, the Cabal of Ghosts, who singed my beard so long ago.'

'You don't have a beard, sir,' Magellan pointed out brilliantly. 

'Never mind, Magellan,' said Raynor wearily. 

Everyone on the bridge stared mutely as the unknown fleet advanced upon Earth, taking up what was clearly an attacking formation, the tiny ships already flitting on ahead to descend on the little blue planet like a cloud of destruction. 'Your orders, sir?' said the helmsman meekly.

Raynor sighed. 'We would be lost against this fleet. We sit back, stay cloaked, and watch the Battle of Earth once again.'

Raynor's advisors shuddered. But for once, they knew he was right. 

NIRNAETH ARNOEDIAD 

The attack came at a time of festival for the Protoss. A time when they were celebrating finally being left in peace by the Zerg (the fact that the Zerg had decamped for the far-away-from-here Terran Homeworld was a fact that while widely known, was ignored) and being able to heal the rift between the sundered kindreds. Kindreds that now, it seemed, could die together. 

From far beyond the Korprulu sector boiled nightmarish air power, Infested Scouts, Carriers, Corsairs and Shuttles rubbed shoulders with Overlords, Mutalisks, Guardians and Devourers which had been grotesquely and by no means seamlessly welded to Protoss technology and plasma shielding. Landing, they spewed out more of the same; Zerg-Protoss Hybrids, Infested Dragoons, Ultralisks bearing the shells of Reavers and spewing Scarabs…

The combined kindreds of the Protoss knew for an instant that they could not be defeated. _Fall back!_ sent Artanis and Zeratul desperately, themselves setting a fine example. _Fall back to the Temple! Fall back for your lives!_

The Protoss fled like the wind; the assembled nightmarish amalgams pursued them relentlessly, but always seemed just far enough behind that casualties were minimal. Moving as fast as they could, Artanis and Zeratul made their way to the top of the Temple. In each left three-fingered hand, was clutched a crystal. Before them burned an eternal blue flame at the centre of a weirdly twisted piece of Xel'Naga architecture.

Each paused a moment, turning around and looking at the multitudes of their people crowded around the Temple, looking up at them imploringly. At the very limits of the crowd, crouched the tides of darkness – unbelievably, merely standing. Waiting. 

For what, they both wondered. As they observed this eerie sight Artanis and Zeratul realised that their worst fear was probably going to be realised, and the retribution of their race had come, but…

__

This is our last hope, observed Artanis. 

__

If this fails, we can expect no mercy, responded Zeratul. _And yet I fear this will be the ultimate joke for our foe. _

We will do what we must, thought Artanis hopelessly. 

__

Then so be it! and Zeratul plunged his crystal into the flame, pulling his hand back. The crystal hung there, emitting a high-pitched whine. 

Artanis plunged deep his own crystal and reeled back. For a moment, the crystals hung together in the flame. Then, it flared blue, sputtered… and died. 

__

Our worst fears have been realised, thought Zeratul.

__

Then all that remains to us is to die with honour, Artanis replied. 

'I think not,' said a new voice. 

Materialising before them on the top floor of the Temple was a figure wearing a long coat of beige. Samir Duran was smiling, wild eyed, and triumphant. 

'You did not _seriously_ think we would allow you to use our own technology against us?' grinned the enigmatic being. 'But of course; you feared this was your last hope. But fear not; you will not be destroyed here and now, just as we were not destroyed. Why do you think we did not destroy you when we had the chance?'

It was clearly a hologram, just as the High Templar might summon. However, little effort had been put into its creation; it could be clearly seen through to the wall behind. Neither Protoss bothered to attack. 

The smile vanished. 'On behalf of the Xel'Naga, I demand the unconditional surrender of both your kindreds.'

__

We shall fight to the end! We shall never surrender! sent back Artanis defiantly. 

Samir Duran stepped forward, mouth twisting in fury. 'I don't think you understand, Mr. Praetor Artanis. You will be kept alive _whether you want it or not._ There will be no "honourable" way out for the Protoss. There was no honourable way out for us. You may fight, if you wish. You will not be slain. We shall hew the limbs off your fighters until they stop struggling, and cling on with limbs even after they have been severed from their bodies.'

Artanis and Zeratul looked at each other helplessly. 

__

Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees, thought Zeratul wearily.

'I think,' gloated Duran, 'that you will be dying on your knees. Slowly…

'Go down from our temple… and await your new Messiahs.'

ATHELAS 

Sarah's world collapsed on Sunday morning, after Raynor's troops had lit out for Earth, taking such recovered personnel from the Centre as wished to enter the theatre of war once again. Sarah had not been asked, and she did not know who had gone, just that the psychic impressions around the area were now much fewer. In that hour such of the Infested Terrans who could still believe in a loving higher power were in the multi-denominational chapel, and the wards were largely deserted. 

Kerrigan got up from her bed and walked unseeing towards the blank wall. In that moment, she knew that all hope of being able to relate to humanity once again, or to find acceptance amongst those she had conquered, was lost; and more, that she would never be able to live with the knowledge of her crimes. Her path was set; she detached the tubes from herself, with some pain and a few leaks of blood, before cloaking, opening the door and heading for the commissary. 

With the skills of a Ghost it was quick and easy work to steal a razor, with which she returned to her room. With terrific, suddenly-remembered strength she barricaded the door with her bed, before kneeling down on the floor. She pushed up the sleeves of her hospital gown, and slashed at her arms until her strength, her will and the sharpness of the blade failed her. 

Soon she had not the strength to remain kneeling, and collapsed face first upon the floor. Her last thoughts as darkness fell and her vision clouded were that she was swimming in blood, like a rat in a sewage flow; and then unconsciousness sent her below the level of any thought at all. 

Thus might have died Sarah Kerrigan, one-time Ghost, one-time Queen of Blades, one-time ruler of the galaxy and scourge of the free peoples. But she had neglected to think to block the gap between the door and the floor; and through that gap, her river of blood flowed. 

Past this torrent Duncan happened to walk; and with a frenzied yell, he ran to raise the alarm. 

This yell brought Sarah back to a nightmare consciousness, of blinding pain in her arms and a crimson tide all she could see. 'Noooooo…' she whispered. 'Let me die.'

There was a crash above her. In her field of vision along the floor, she saw the grille over the ventilator shaft rattle to the floor, followed closely by a booted foot. Duncan leaned down towards her. 'Sarah!' he gasped. 

'Leave me to die…' she croaked. 

'I won't let that happen!' He reached down, cradling her in his arms. He was closely followed by Alexei Stukov, who eyed the stricken woman and shook his head gravely. Meanwhile, Duncan was pulling the laces out of his boots. He wrapped them around Sarah's mid-biceps, where the brachial artery comes to the surface, and used a pen to twist them tight with painful force. The blood flow from the perforated arms slowed and stopped. Realising that her suicide attempt had failed, Sarah collapsed in Duncan's lap and wept freely. 

'Those wounds will take hours to stitch,' observed Stukov dispassionately. 

'That may be so,' said Duncan grimly, 'but this time, Sarah will live. I shall see to that.'

Sarah continued to weep. But light-years away, watching the second Battle of Earth as the Last-stager forces shredded the remaining human and Zerg, Raynor through some entropic or psionic medium realised that Sarah's heart was turned away from him forever; and for all his power as the Ghost Templar and the leader of the last free people in the galaxy, a dark seed of evil was sown. 

THE RUIN OF BELERIAND 

Ruby Red was lolling triumphantly behind her recently-commandeered desk at the Oval Office when she received a telepathic message from one of her subordinates, delegated to maintain the Last-stager patrols in orbit around their new planet. 

__

Yes? she responded. She smiled insolently at Gryphon, Orwell and Callahan, lined up against the wall, covered in chains that bound them in position. Orwell and Callahan had not had time to be infested before the Last-stager _blitzkreig_ upon the planet, though whether this was preferable to capture, humiliation and being forced to watch the subjugation of their world was anybody's guess. Meanwhile, what amounted to a squad of six Last-stagers working in paired shifts (echoing, eerily, the Ghosts who were still controlling Arcturus) was clamping down on Gryphon's power and holding her like a fly in amber. The Zerg served new masters now. 

__

Unknown fleet approaching from Korprulu sector, came the message._ Strange design, huge numbers. _

Ruby Red's expression showed nothing other than gleeful contempt to anyone else present, but her thoughts bespoke urgency. _I shall meet you aboard the flagship at once,_ she sent back._ This matter requires my personal intervention._

Ruby, clad in the all-encompassing silver armour which enabled her to move around in Earth's climate and gravity, rose imperiously to her feet. 'Mister Willard, you may command in my absence,' she sneered. 'I am adjourning to my flagship for a while to deal with more polite company.'

'With pleasure,' grinned Willard, the insult meaning little to him. Since the takedown by the Last-stagers, Earth society had abruptly changed to be for the benefit of a very few. At the top of the tree were the Last-stagers, whose word was law, who needed not their fantastic weapons technology when they could control or blast the mind of any normal human. Below them were Ghosts (originally from either side) whose psychic power had now been set up to be able to use the Zerg, wrenched from Kerrigan's command, as enforcers. Below them were normal humans, stripped of all civil or human rights whatsoever, the playthings of the Zerg and Ghosts. 

Just as the Last-stagers had predicted, the Ghosts had gone on an orgy of rapine, murder, depravity and exploitation as soon as they had the chance. This led to quite frequent uprisings by the humans and pitched battle – of which the Last-stagers made it clear that their underlings had to deal with. Leading to wholesale slaughter of all parties except the conquering powers, who stayed well out of it. Not an ideal state of affairs for any ruler who wanted any kind of work or progress out of a conquered nation, but then the Last-stagers had never been interested in this…

Ruby Red headed for her Pod and flew up to her flagship without incident. The sky was filled with similar Last-stager craft, on occasion patrolling, but mostly gleefully watching the carnage that was erupting below on their supposedly ruled planet. However, no one passed without psychic interrogation. 

Ruby headed through her ship's darkened tunnels, shedding her cumbersome exo-skeleton as she went, until she reached the bridge. 'Where is this fleet?' she snapped without preliminaries. 

'Over there,' indicated a fellow, pointing at a scanner showing the region of space towards the Korprulu sector. 

Ruby frowned at the screen. She had not seen enough of Zerg or Protoss technology to be able to identify individual parts, but she knew enough to know that these were grotesque hybrids, neither one thing nor another. 'I had the understanding that these two miscegenated races were enemies. Why would their ships be combined?'

'Don't know.' Close behind Ruby Red, a female Last-stager with purple hair was looking over her shoulder. However, the commander was too preoccupied to notice.

__

Perhaps you would be interested in finding out, a psychic voice of immense power rumbled in her head. 

__

Who's there? What brings you to this sector? rapped Ruby Red, refusing to be rattled. 

__

Perhaps you would consider meeting me on this planet's Moon, in the centre of the largest crater, rang back an amused, sardonic telepathic voice. _There is much you might be interested in hearing. _

The contact broke off. Ruby knew that her curiosity was far too large to deny. 

The exoskeletons were just as suitable for the Moon as they were for Earth. Ruby duly landed a short distance from where instructed and made her way towards a lone figure she saw standing there. The gravity, she felt immediately, was much more agreeable than that of Earth. 

Her eyes widened behind her faceplate though when she observed that the figure was a human wearing a beige coat – and no spacesuit. She wondered incredulously how it could survive – before deciding that the telepathic voice that had boomed in her head was clearly not that of a human either. She advanced until she was six feet from the sardonically grinning, wild-eyed figure. 

She determined to start with the advantage. _I am Ruby Red, of the people of the Last 32nd Stage and the Brotherhood of Metal, currently ruler of Earth. Who are you, and why have you asked me here?_

The figure smiled in amusement. _I am Samir Duran, mouthpiece of the Xel'Naga, who currently control Shakuras and the two kindreds of the Protoss._

I have asked you here to propose… an alliance.

An alliance? sent back Ruby, incorporating just the right level of skepticism into her voice. In truth she was immensely relieved. The fleet she had seen on the scanner, and could now see for real in impressive formation behind the stranger's head in space, looked more than a match for the Last-stager forces currently on Earth. 

__

I believe we can be of mutual benefit to one another. I am particularly interested in trading technology. You have particular mastery, between yourselves and the mainstream humans, of fantastic weaponry including nuclear attack. We have considerable mastery – as you can see behind you – of genetics and combining biological and mechanical material. What say you?

Ruby Red did her best to control her expression so that it did not show that this was the best outcome that could have been hoped for. She had been covertly extending her psychic sensitivity, greater than any human's, over the figure during the conversation and was disturbed by what she had found. It was able to survive in the cold, airless environment because it was not really alive at all – it was more of the order of a form of flesh, animated by a mind of phenomenal psychic power. This might have been bad enough in itself, but hovering around the figure she could sense yet more minds, not embodied but of the same magnitude of potence, merely watching and listening. She was certain these beings, whatever they were, would not go down easily or quickly. 

She betrayed none of this, merely stepping forward and gripping the figure's hand. _Done,_ she sent. 

Samir Duran giggled, wild-eyed. _I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship. _


End file.
